#92: From Startup to Grown-up: David Ko, CEO of Calm — from gaming to mental health, tools to com...

it's not that people just have mental health issues at home and all of a sudden they go to work and it stops. The reality is you spend more time at work than you do at home. And so your mental health issues aren't, aren't gonna say, okay, timeout, I'm at work now, please go away and come back at 7:00 PM.

If only they did that. Yeah.

Right.

It's here. And so I think it's up to us. Also as leaders to recognize the conversation is happening. How do we start to have this conversation at work? How do we train our employees and our managers so people can be in the green when they're at work?

Welcome back. This is From Sharp to Grown Up. My name is Alisa Cohn, and today I'm thrilled to welcome David Ko to the podcast. David is the CEO of Calm, the wildly popular meditation app that has evolved into a full-fledged mental health company. He's also the author of a new book called Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery One One Conversation at a Time, which explores tools to help you safeguard your own mental health as well as help the people around you. Now, David's path to calm was not a straight line. Before this, he was a leader at the gaming company Zynga, and we talked today about what the CEO of Aetna said to him that inspired him to move from gaming into healthcare. David founded Rally Health, which kind of gamified healthcare. He ultimately sold Rally to UnitedHealth. Now, we also talked about another unexpected pathway that led him to focus on healthcare, starting with a kitchen table full of Post-it notes in his mother's house. One of the most powerful ideas David shared is this concept of the mental battery, treating your mental energy like a phone battery and being intentional about checking and recharging it. We also talked about easy but powerful tools that managers can use to check in with their people and the questions he uses himself with his own children and colleagues. David shared a number of practical leadership lessons, including the number one cause of burnout and how to avoid it, why transparency is crucial even when the news is not good, and how the right dose of stress is actually nourishing, not draining. And David also opened up about his experiences stepping into a founder-led company as an outside CEO.

You're gonna love this conversation.

It is filled with insights and a lot of practical tools. Please enjoy my fantastic conversation with David Ko.

David, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.

Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it.

I'm delighted that you're here. And you know, David, just for everybody to know that for the context, you're the CEO of Calm and Calm is known as being a meditation app, but it's actually become a mental health company. But before that, you were the CEO of Rippling and you were the COO of Zy— of Zygna. That's how you pronounce it, right? Zygna, a gaming company. That is quite a broad transition, if I may. Like, can you walk us through how this all happened and how you became the CEO of Calm from that kind of background?

You know, I think all of us, for many of us, we take these lines that are not linear, and mine wasn't. I think like so many individuals, you kind of wander to figure out what is your kind of why. I think for myself, I was really just fortunate to be in gaming. I did that after a decade at Yahoo.

Mm-hmm.

I worked with a very passionate founder, Mark Pincus, who founded Zynga. It, it reached 100 million people a day, and it was something that I had always had a passion around, just trying to understand the community and, and really liked what the company had stood for around play. And so how do you play games together? And it was kind of like a board game, kind of sitting around a board game, but almost like a digital board game and, and getting back to kind of playing together. I, um, what I really learned from there and, and had one of these moments where two people that will be, that were in my book actually, Recharge, I met actually during that time, Jack Rose and John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple and the former CEO of Aetna. And, and they asked if I was interested in healthcare, which I was, and to learn more. And they were interested in gaming. So it was kind of one of those transitions that worked for each other. And they said something really important. And Jack Rose said, you know, If you could help 100,000 people, not 100 million people, 100,000 people engage with their health, you could really change society. 'Cause that's what healthcare needs is engagement. And you have that in gaming.

It—

that stuck with me for so long. And after I left gaming, I realized that I wanted to take a lot of what I learned and bring that to healthcare. And that continued that transition into Ripple, my own company. Rally Health, and then eventually Calm.

Right.

Was there something specific about healthcare? I mean, obviously that's an important thing, and I, I have to agree that like gaming is very engaging and the gamification of things helps people do the things they should be doing if we can apply it. But was there something about health that also made you interested?

Well, I think there was a couple of points around health that I seem very— that I was very interested in. One of them was just around how do you help people? I think that was a core fundamental is that I just wanted to go figure out how I could help individuals. And that was, that was something that was very core to myself. The second part was, you know, a lot of people said to me during that time, you know, healthcare's very hard to effectuate change. And I think so many of us love a good challenge. And, and, and that was something that I wanted to go test out. And then the third part of it, which is something that has become on a more personal front, it's been around my own mental health journey and really thinking through, well, I've had my own journey. I wish I had products like Calm or others that were out there in the market when I was younger. So how do I, how do I be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem?

Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. You know, you talk in your book, your book is called "Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery One Conversation at a Time." It's a great title. And in your book, you just mentioned just now that your own mental health challenges, you share some of that in the book. Is there some, just some of the parts of that you could share for us about just sort of get an understanding of the challenges you're talking about?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, there's, there's kind of the broad— there's a broader why of, of why I wrote the book. And part of it in the beginning was the fact that I do feel the conversations around mental health, especially in the US, are probably the most approachable that it's ever been. And I see that. I see that when people talk about it, we see that with celebrities, but it's not very approachable at work. And why is that? And so I started having conversations with many business leaders that were out there and asking them about their own journeys. And their journeys were— they were inspiring about how they face their own challenges and some of the techniques they use in their own journeys. But when I asked them, did they— do they share that on a more broad basis? Many of them don't. And I just felt it was really important to kind of get that out there. And then the second part of that was after asking them, would they mind if I share it? And they were all good with me sharing it. And then the second part of it was my own journey. More of a personal journey was, you know, I had my first, I wrote in the book, I had my first panic attack when I was 14 years old. I didn't quite understand what it was at the time. I didn't have the language. I was giving advice from my mom who I absolutely adore and love. She's given me great advice over the years, but this was not her best advice. Which was, you know, just to power through the moment. And, you know, she, she was first, you know, she was, she'd just come from Korea and, you know, didn't really quite understand the language of mental health either. That's not what she grew up around. And so she didn't have the language to speak about it nor give the advice around it. So she just was like, you just gotta keep going.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, wait, I don't understand what I'm feeling. And so when I have conversations with my own kids today who are 17 and 14, and two daughters. And even though they may overuse it, I'm glad we're at least having the conversation that I wasn't able to have when I was their age. And the other part of that, on a personal note, that I really like about Calm is it's the first company where my kids use the products that I've built, and that makes me really proud as well to be in healthcare. And a part of a company that is wanting to be a part of the solution for mental health for so many people out there today.

Yeah, I think that's, that must be amazing for you to have them have the experiences. But then also it's very interesting what you say, kind of the legacy from your, of your mother. It makes me wonder if your mother had panic attacks herself and that the way she did handled it was to push through. And that's the best advice she had for you in that moment.

Well, it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a bigger frustration. I'll be frank with you of mine, which is yes, the conversation around mental health is the most approachable it's ever been in the US. But if you go to other countries out there, especially in Asia or where my parents live today in Korea or in other parts of Asia, that conversation hasn't even started. It's still very much, it's not happening in society. And it's especially not happening in the workplace. Unfortunately, it's becoming a topic today because so many young people in pop culture in Korea are committing suicide.

Oh, wow.

Now all of a sudden they're having conversations around mental health. But prior to that, it was kind of swept underneath the rug.

Yeah.

And so it's unfortunate that it's taken that to have a conversation, but now at least more people are like, we should have a conversation around this. Are young people getting the help they need and what is driving some of these things. And so, and I think obviously this conversation in different parts of the world is different. When I look back at companies like Calm today, I mean, we are in 190 countries, we've been downloaded over 180 million times, and it's not just here in the US, it's globally. So whether or not we want to address it, that conversation is happening all over the world today. And it's not just with companies like our own, it's with other companies that are out there today. And we wanna make sure that we all start to have this dialogue together.

Yeah, totally. And I think that's so powerful that there's like, you know, Calm and other things which are tools that people can use. So even if the conversation is not happening in the outside world, you know that you're not alone, if you will, because you have these tools to use. Now, Calm really got its start as a meditation app. What was the journey now for it to be a mental health app? How has it changed and adapted? How have you changed like the positioning and the branding?

When I go anywhere in the world today, which, and, and I sometimes have my couple minutes of fame with my own kids and then, and then it'll go away. I, we were traveling in Europe and, and we were sitting in a small restaurant. Another couple asked what, what I do and I said, hey, I work at Calm. Didn't tell them what I do at Calm. I just said I work at Calm. And this woman who was a retired nurse was like, popped her phone up and said, I have Calm. I use Calm. And For a second, my kids were like, that's really cool. And then they went back to going in, in their regular schedule program. You know, it just kind of shows the impact of the brand and, and, and really it starts with the brand and it starts with the company mission to make the world healthier and happier. It's, it's a really simple concept, but it's a very bold concept in, in my mind. Mm-hmm. And the way we wanna get there is we wanna be with you every step of the way in your mental health journey. And, and the reason why I say that is that the company First Yes started around meditation, but really started to grow when it focused on sleep. And the fact of the matter is that when you poll people today, yes, I think the last polls that I saw were that over a billion people struggle in the world today with anxiety and depression or some form of that. I think those numbers are vastly understated cuz it was done in around 2020.. And, but what we see in latest studies around 2024 is to say that almost 40% of people have trouble sleeping. And we know that, right? With whether it's technology, whether it's multitasking, whether it's caregiving, there's so much stresses of life that are with us all throughout the day that impact our sleep, exercise, diet, alcohol, for example. And so people are having trouble sleeping. Calm was a way for people to drift off and to get a better night's sleep, or to help people at least start the process to go to sleep or put down their phones and at least listen to something and to go to sleep. Half of our user base today uses Calm for sleep. That morphed then into enterprises coming to us and saying, hey, can we get Calm as a benefit for our employees? And it's spurned kind of an enterprise business for us. And then that actually spurned a different kind of business for us, which is around our healthcare division, which was saying, hey, can we make more of a healthcare product going forward that we could actually give to our members? Because we have all these services, but people don't engage with them. They don't use them. And people aren't going to get better if they don't trust us or engage with us. So can you work with us going forward? And that's kind of how the company continues to evolve, is to meet you where you are in your mental health journey, wherever you're at and through whatever types of distribution mechanism going forward.

Yeah, that makes complete sense. That's really helpful. And how did you end up being the C, like, like, can you paint that picture?

Yeah, sure, sure. Well, going back to my mom, uh, because things always go back to your mom.

Apparently so.

I, I had left my previous company in 2019, which was called Rally Health. It had been acquired by UnitedHealthcare. In '17 fully. And in '19, as I was visiting my mom in Korea, who was taking care of my grandmother, who, who now just turned 100, who was turning 101. Wow. So this is, you know, 6 years back. I noticed, 'cause she's, she's a caregiver. My, my mother takes care of her grandmother. And I looked on the kitchen table. And it was full of Post-it notes and it was like medication here, time, pain remind, you know, pick up here, go to doctor here. And I was just sitting there wondering, in a country that is so advanced technology-wise, why are you still using paper to care for my grandmother or your mother? And so we thought of a company to go create. It was called Ripple. And the whole premise was to create a kind of care, a caregiving platform that would supplement and support payer-provider care management teams. But the simple part of it was I, I built an app that was called LikePaper, and I wanted to take back the kitchen table for what it should be, eating, and not full of all your healthcare records and to simplify that process. And so, you know, whoever you're caring for could have an app and say like, how am I feeling? It could communicate to you. And, and during COVID that product really took off. And what we noticed with all the people that we were using the product was all of them were suffering from mental health issues. Like people who were caregiving and taking care of a mo— their mother, loved one, children, family members, aunts, uncles, whoever it may be, they were suffering and they had to work and then they had to come home and take care of someone. There were no breaks for them. And so I reached out to the founders of Calm and said, hey, I have built this company and I'd like to build another one 'cause it's now profitable and I'd like it to focus on mental health. I use your app. Can you give me some ideas? And we started talking and then eventually they said, well, why don't we just come together and bring that expertise together? And eventually that's kind of how we all came together.

Yeah. So you all came together like a band. I love it. I love it. And then you, you named Michelle to the Beatles, but then that, they It was taken, unfortunately. But so that's fascinating. And I knew some of that story. I didn't know about your mom and the kitchen table. And that's, that's really powerful. That is an experience that everybody has, right? Like they've got to keep themselves sticky notes for the things which are important. That's such an important use case.

Right?

And yeah, totally.

It was also one where it didn't have to be that way. It was just what was kind of like the easiest thing she could go do.

Right. Everyone invents that for themselves. Yeah.

And I think in this new era that we're all in today, we either problem solve for ourselves or we try to problem solve for others.

Yeah.

And I think when it's personal, we can problem solve. You know, we look to problem solve and I was like, hey, look, I can go fix this. And so we took a team and we went to go work on it and, and the rest is kind of history now.

I love that. Now, but how did you end up being the CEO? So you, so did, were the founders that, were they planning to, you know, step aside or? Like, how did that all go, go down? Yeah.

Yeah. We first started as myself and Michael Acton-Smith started as co-CEOs together, and he was in London with the, there, there were two CEOs before me. They were both co, they were the founders, Michael Acton-Smith and Alex Toob. And Alex was on the product side. And what they really wanted to get back to was going and creating product again. And they felt that they had gotten away from what they were passionate about. And so when the two companies combined, they were like, hey, can we go back to building and doing stuff that we were doing before? And I was like, wait, I thought we were gonna do this together. And they were like, uh, and then so it felt a little bit like a bait and switch, but it was a real gift for us all because we all played to our strengths. So they were, they were like, hey, you, you go focus on this. Go focus on continuing to grow the company, continuing to curate the brand, We will continue to support you, and the best way we can support you is by building products or features that, that we can bring to market faster.

Yeah. And did it sounds like because of that support and that graceful transition, you may have had, let's call it an easier time than other people coming in to kind of replace the founders. But, uh, you tell me, what was that like? Because that is a very awkward trans— that can be an awkward transition for people.

It can be, and especially when they're still there. You know, I, um, I meet with them all the time. We spend a lot of time together. We don't always agree on things, you know, and people think we're always agreeing. That's not actually the case. We're all pretty passionate and we all wanna do the right thing.

Mm-hmm.

And so my goal for them is to be super honest with them on products that are developing and, and they've, they've been launching products and features and integrating them. And my, and their job to me is to, to push me to be better as well. And so I think it's, I think being CEO of any company, whether it's big or small, and I'm fortunate to have done this a few times, it's really hard and it can be very lonely and it can be very taxing and it can be very hard on one's mental health. When you have people with you that you can trust, it's like, it's like the work analogy. If you have one best friend at work, you're ha— you are happier. I feel like I've got a few, and so I can work with a few folks who understand what I'm thinking and who understand sometimes the loneliness of the job, the pressures of the job. And we can, we can kind of like talk about it together and have conversation around that together. And it's like the book Recharge, right? How do you boost your mental battery? For me, I boost it by having conversation, this conversation. Conversations with them, and that helps my own internal battery.

Yeah, I think that's so well said. You know, one other thing I would say is that research shows that burnout is not about working too many hours. It's about working too much in a situation which is not working. So it's bureaucratic. You write, you can't say what there is to say. But so that the lack of open dialogue and having to hold yourself back, that's what drives burnout.

That's right.

That's right. So your ability to really have honest conversations with them kind of unlock, and as you said, it's energizing. As you, you talk about in the book, a lot of ideas around, you know, how do people recharge their batteries? And, and I'd love you to maybe share, and, and by the way, maybe even define battery. It's not like you define it in a certain kind of way, and maybe talk about how you came up with a metaphor of the battery and then how specifically people can recharge their batteries.

Yeah. So, The battery concept was something that came from a coworker of mine, and she's worked with me for a few companies and we've worked together. And I asked her one day, she had gone on vacation and she had come back and I said, how was your trip? You know, and how do you talk to your kids about, you know, kind of like how they're doing? And she said, well, I ask 'em how their battery is. And I was like, wait, wait, tell me more. I, what does that mean? And she said, well, if I ask 'em how they're doing, they just say, I'm fine, I'm good. And there she has two boys. And I was like, but if I ask them, how's your, how's your battery? They'll say like, hey, it's like at 50%. And then, cuz her children are younger, she'll know like she has to give 'em a snack or some food. Or if she says they're at like 90%, she knows they're good. I was like, wow, that's a great concept. I wonder if I can work on that concept and could that be the nucleus? And so I started testing that concept around. And what I realized was that, you know, we check our phones all throughout the day and how often do we, and when we do, we check on ourselves. I started to realize that we take better care of our phone batteries than our mental health battery. And so I started to think, how do you tie some of those two together? And how do you take a heavy topic or what could be perceived more importantly as a heavy topic? And just kind of make it much more approachable so we can have a dialogue. 'Cause people often will tell me they want to have a conversation with others about their mental health, but they don't know how to start it. And then they don't know, understand, like, what are some of the things around it? And so part of it was equate it to a, a phone battery to, and say, how's your battery? And their, and depending on their response, you would give them different kind of techniques to recharge. So I'll give you what I would do if I was at 90%, I'm good. If I'm at 70 or 60% of my own internal battery, I know I may need a walk. I, I know I may, I may need water, uh, that I'm about to sip on. I may need to go speak to someone that would help boost my own battery. I may need probably to say tonight, I probably have to get a better night's sleep. And so what's kind of holding me back? And so there's a number of things that kind of work for individuals differently, but you gotta figure out what can work for you. Cause they're not all the same, but I wanted to give you different techniques in the book from a number of different individuals in terms of how they recharge as well.

Yeah, I love that. And I love the idea of not asking, how are you doing? Because really that's, that's like a code.

How you doing? I'm good.

Good. Let's talk about the thing I wanna talk about.

That's right. I, I'll tell you, I don't know if you do this, but I found myself being, after I started thinking about it and, and, and you've seen this as well, not only with your podcast, people that you've talked to, your book, but like I realize I don't, I didn't always make the time or the space for that conversation. And so I'm a lot more intentional today. If I ask you, I'm ready for your response because I think what's true is when we ask people how are they doing, we just want to hear I'm good. And so that you can keep going and move on.

Right.

But what happens when someone says, I'm not, I'm not so good. All of a sudden you're like, wait, I gotta go to this next meeting. I didn't allocate more than like 62 seconds for this conversation. How do I, how do I do this? You know? And so now be a little bit more intentional, make sure you're present for that conversation, and then give yourself some space around it. And if you ask the question, how's your battery? And they can, then you can give them maybe some quick techniques.. And if you need to follow up with them, you can, knowing what their battery level was. And so you have an indicator of how they're feeling.

Yeah, it's also for, certainly for a manager or a coworker, 'cause so much of this happens in the workplace context, right? It's also just an opening to have it not everything be okay and sort of the ability and permission, if you will, to talk about something which may not be okay about their lives. And I think that's important as a sort of, as a tool for, if I can say so, intimacy at work. And certainly, certainly safe space for, you know, having, having a, a deeper conversation, let's say.

That's right. And I think it's really, it's important for business leaders and, and again, so many people of this podcast that listen to you week in and week out, you know, to recognize this conversation is happening, whether you want to, if you choose, choose to see it or not. You know, it's not that people just have mental health issues at home. And all of a sudden they go to work and it stops. The reality is you spend more time at work than you do at home. And so your mental health issues aren't gonna say, okay, timeout, I'm at work now, please go away and come back at 7:00 PM. That's not exactly how it's, and we know that's not how it works.

If only, if only they did that. Yeah.

Right. It's here. And so I think it's up to us also as leaders to recognize the conversation is happening. How do we start to have this conversation at work? How do we train our employees and our managers so people can be in the green when they're at work?

Love that. It's so helpful. So let's talk a little bit more about tools. Let's talk about, first of all, tools for managers to check in on their people's batteries and then give them help, support, advice, counsel to help fill them. And then we can move into, like, how do you help your own battery? So first is, you know, with what you've already said so far is like a manager or a coworker, but let's talk managers, can ask their people, how is your battery? What are the other tools you have, do you have for them to be helpful to their people? Yeah.

And I, I've had, I've been asked to speak on this a lot recently. I think more than typical, it's been happening with a number of leadership teams. And I think that's a great start when it happens, happens with the leadership teams, because these things need buy-ins at all levels. It can't just be like, you know what, I'm, I'm not going to talk about it, but my employees will talk about it and they'll figure it out. I think it has to happen at all levels of the company and you start to have the conversation and you make time and space for the conversation. I know for myself, it wasn't easy. I told my own employees to talk about my own mental health journey, but I wanted them to know, hey, while there's a perception that everything may look good from the outside, And it did for so many people I interviewed in my book or upcoming podcasts. Like it, there's this perception that, oh, all is well with all these individuals. But the fact of the matter is all of them have their own mental health journeys that they wanted to share and techniques that they end up using. So one is just making sure that people know that it's okay to have the conversation and having it at the highest levels, because obviously it's happening at all levels. Of the company. The second thing is how do we become much more thoughtful as leaders going forward to recognize and to say this, there is no such thing as a stress-free work environment. So I even tell this to my own employees at Calm here. I'm like, people think from the outside, they're like, what's it like working at Calm? I'm like, I'm probably the most stressed out CEO you'll meet out of all CEOs and all the people on your podcast. I'm definitely the most stressed. And because every second of every day someone is using our product, I feel there's a tremendous amount of responsibility for us to show up when they need us. So yes, we're totally stressed because we have to show up for people every single day. So making sure we create that. So what ends up happening is if you recognize you're gonna have stress in the workplace, you recognize you want to— here's some techniques to have the conversation. Then it's the part about like, well, What else can lead to this stress? And I think the number one thing that I've seen when I talk to companies, it's workload management, meaning the following, meaning that so many times, and it's natural, we're gonna have to go run at things, but it's up to us as a leadership team, especially in these hybrid work environments, remote work environments, one, you always have to explain the why. I don't think we do a very good job communicating to our employees why certain things are important and why they're not important. And we just assume everyone knows. We literally assume that everyone's gonna know and we just don't take the time to explain the why. And I think if you slow down a little, and Jack Rowe said it in my book really well, he said, sometimes you gotta shift and get outta gear. Okay. Shift and get out of gear here too, to explain the why. So you're running a million miles a moment and you're just like, go do this. And people are like, wait, what? Why is this important? I have no idea. How does this actually like have any relevance to what I'm doing today? After you do that, then take a moment as a leader to go, well, how much do they have on their work plate? And are there things I should take away? Because what I find often, and I've done this with a lot of leaders today, we're used to stacking. And that is we just continue to stack until an employee effectively breaks. And we think we're thoughtful. We're all, we're all not, you know, being kind together at work. We're all saying all the right things, but we're stacking. And at some point that stack is going to tip over. And We start to address things when they tip over. But the thing is, you can be more proactive and not reactive. And if you're more proactive and you're having the conversation of what you're adding and what you're kind of taking away and that you're recognizing some of these workloads, that also can lead to a better balance and workforce workload management and a healthier and happier workforce and a more resilient workforce going forward.

Yeah. I also think it just shows up as a leader who cares. That's right. And honestly, back to burnout, it's like working too hard. The hard work is too hard because it's bureaucratic and whatnot, and nobody cares. That leads to burnout. It's like, or I'm working really hard, and I'm feeling cared for and acknowledged by my manager. Boy, that actually makes a big difference. It's a big difference.

100%. How many times have you heard the term, my manager's out of touch, you know, or, or that's, or that C-suite or executive team's out of touch. The suits, the suits, the suits are out of touch, right? They're out of touch. They don't know what's happening. Yeah, there's some truth to that. There, there is truth at times where yes, because it just seems like the workload is just coming down and there's not an acknowledgement of things that were deprioritizing. So, a lot of times I encourage my own leadership team, I encourage other leadership teams to take stock of the things that we're asking our teams to go do. And what's funny is when I'm in these leadership meetings, it can get a little awkward because they're like, well, the boss over there is stacking on me, you know? And so, but I think that's a healthy conversation to have in the room. I'll be like, well, how many of you feel like The CEO here is stacking on you. And this is a safe space. We should be able to have a dialogue. And more hands will raise than you think, or there'll be more people kind of smiling than you think, 'cause they know it starts at the top and the boss is stacking, and then they start to stack, and at some point the whole company's stacking on one another and it's gonna tip.

It's so important. How do you handle that when you sort of look around the room and you're like, oh, they're talking about me?

It happens. It's just, You know, the thing that I try to do, and I often talk about this, is try to put your shoes in, try to put yourself in their shoes. And the reality is there are times where we're just gonna have to run. That is a state of the business. There are times where we're not gonna be able to fully communicate, but let's not let that be the norm. All right? Let, let, let's not let that be what we do week in and week out. There may be the, those occasions where we can't explain things and we're just gonna have, you're gonna just have to trust it. But more often than not, I would rather overcommunicate than undercommunicate. And, and you may not always like the message, 'cause sometimes like people are like, well, that's bad news. And I'm like, I think that's important. I think it's important that employees understand the good parts of the business, and then they understand also when it's not going as well, and that we, that there's a shared purpose and that they feel a part of the journey. And then they realize the journey isn't all up into the right. It's going to have your peaks and it's going to have your valleys, and at times it's going to be stagnant. But hopefully when we get to the end together, whatever that may be, we've done it together and we realize we can all benefit from that together as well, the impact.

Yeah, totally. I want to call out two important things that actually we've touched on so far for everybody. One is this notion of stress. It's like, oh no, my workplace shouldn't be stressed. Ridiculous. Of course your workplace is stressed. David Ko, the CEO of Calm, is a stress ball. That's the way it is.

Tight stress ball.

Tight stress ball. Your workplace is going to be stressed. And oh, by the way, stress is not bad. Stress is like a challenge. Stress gives you adrenaline. Stress actually protects your immune system. Stress in the right dose, again, in the right context, is actually very, very nourishing because you know you're up for a challenge which is worthy. When stress gets to be too much, and also, again, you don't feel appreciated and you're stressed, you don't I never have downtime. That's when stress becomes toxic. And I just think it's important to acknowledge that.

So well said. So well said. And thank you for sharing that. Cause also in, in, in my book, Dr. Aditi Norikar talks exactly about what you just said. She said, you know, there's, there's good stress. That's eustress. And then there's bad stress, distress. Good. You know, the good stress can bring you together. The good stress can build resilience. The good stress can build your culture. The bad stress could then lead to parts that aren't so good about a company, toxic, and it can lead to bad culture if it's not addressed. So you want to, you have to recognize stress is there, but you want more good stress rather than distress.

Yep, totally. Then the second thing you said I think is so important is we cannot protect our employees from bad news. Hi, we live in a world, there's bad news. You, companies go up and down, up and down. That's normal. You lose customers, you make mistakes. Emergencies happen. That is just normal in life. By the way, it leads to stress, right? Hopefully, hopefully the good kind of stress. But I think not acknowledging that and not being honest with people then brings up again its own sort of toxic positivity. We can't talk about difficult things here. And again, we, the suits, are not going to share with you, the employees, what's really going on. And it creates this, I think, also disparity, which doesn't mean, oh my God, we're going out of business. It's so terrible, is the right thing to share with employees. You've got to be appropriate. Appropriate in how you share and what you share and mindful and intentional. But I do think it's really important for employees not to think that everything's just fine and they're sort of passive passengers on the road.

That's right. I mean, we do these culture surveys at least twice a year. And I remember the first time I came into the company, we were doing this culture survey and they were like, should we show all the responses to the company and present out? And I was like, absolutely. And they're like, well, what about these bad ones? And I was like, yeah. I was like, listen, they're gonna be there no matter what. Right? And so you might as well just acknowledge it. And if people have questions and they're like, I don't understand what the strategy is or where we're going or the why, just show it because that's also a reminder to us that we could do better. It's a reminder to the whole team that there's someone out there that doesn't understand what we're doing, and they were brave enough to answer the question. You don't like the response, and so the response shouldn't be, let's not show it.

Right.

The response should be like, let's share it, because others also may be thinking of it, not this just one individual. And I do think it's important that it just gets acknowledged that there's questions and we're gonna do our best to, to, to answer them.

Yeah. Which again, builds trust because of the transparency about it.

Yeah. Yeah. We're not gonna satisfy everyone. You know that this isn't a popularity— the hard part is this isn't a popularity contest. And I think you're in the wrong job if you want to be liked. That's just my personal, like, this job has hard decisions you're gonna have to make at times that aren't gonna be popular, but ultimately you have to make that decision. And so I've recognized at times. In my own career where I've like, oh wow, do I want to be more liked or do I want to have the right business results? Or who am I, or do I have investors? Like what type of, like what, where do I want to be? And it's a really hard thing 'cause you know, we're all human and sometimes the comments are really hard. We all read them and you know, and that's just 'cause people feel like they want to say something. But I do think if you take a step back sometimes and recognize what's the real meaning behind some of this, and just to also recognize you're not going to satisfy everyone, but try to do the best that you can to be more communicative rather than not, that could also really help with employee stress as well.

Yeah, definitely. And at Calm, you also have these specific rituals that you use to support the culture, which I think also kind of helps just really focus on really your ultimate mission. So what are some of those rituals and routines that you guys have?

I'll give you, I'll give you one when I first joined, 'cause I didn't, I wasn't even sure if it was, if it was truthful. So I, I joined my first company, all hands, and the, we're about to start and we actually stopped and said, hey, we're gonna go listen to Jay Shetty for the next 90 seconds. And, you know, we listened to him give one of his quick kind of meditations. And then we went into our company all-hands. I had never done that in my 30-year career where, you know, hey, let's, before we start this company all-hands, let's all go play a game. Or before we start this company all-hands, let's all go send an email or go onto this website. We never did that. And here we are and everyone is present. Everyone is in the moment.. And I thought it was a great thing that to showcase unity. I thought it was also a great thing that not everyone had to do it, but it was something that most people wanted to do. It centered them and they were much more present for our all-hands. And so that was something where I thought that was just really cool and a way to kind of show that, hey, we use our product and so we're practicing what we preach. So it's just one small example of something that, uh, we did as a company.

I love that. Do you have other ones that you do?

Yeah, so we just came off this, you know, we have Zoom-free days that we'll do as well as a company in a hybrid work environment. We'll also do things to recognize like mental health days. So if we, if we see that there's, and look, this is stuff that you, we, we give you a lot of leeway in this to say you have to use your own discretion. So if you feel you're behind, you, you can use that time where you're not overscheduled. Because one thing I often find us too is so many of us are just overscheduled back to back. We don't put in enough kind of time for ourselves. We don't put in enough time to think thoughtfully about the next meeting, prepare, or even write notes from the prior meeting, right? And then we get home late at night and we're just trying to play catch up and we're not present for family or friends or ourselves. So, and it becomes a very vicious cycle, right? Because you can always feel like I'm behind.. And so we wanted to be a lot more thoughtful and intentional in our own process about how do we really think about our own employees' mental health journeys while recognizing we still have a business to run.

I, I love that. And I think it's the, the word I'm kind of coming up with is like intentional, is that we designed it in a certain way and that we're intentional about it. And I think that is like so helpful for everybody. And I'm just curious, like, for you, as you kind of entered this environment, which was, you know, new, you're like, what are we doing now? Jay Shetty? Like, what?

Right?

And by the way, what a beautiful practice. It totally, it primes everyone. Like, I know that for me, when I take a moment and listen to something inspirational or do a quick meditation, it totally changes my experience of that moment and kind of the moments that follow. So I really get it, but I'm just curious, what ways have you personally grown as you've led this company?

Yeah, I think it's, it's really around presence to be present with one another. I, I was always in a task of multitasking and at times what I realized was that I would run my battery pretty low and not be my best for the next meeting and people. And what I realized that can just spiral very fast. And I've been doing it for so long. I didn't even recognize I was doing it half the time. And so part of what I've been doing now is taking a step back at times and saying, well, how is I, well, I do it now when I check on my phone and I'm looking at my battery, I am checking in on myself and I'm asking myself like, okay, am I going to be good for this next meeting? Because sometimes Maybe I'll have to just push it back, or maybe it doesn't make as much sense and I'll put more breaks in, or maybe I'll put in time where it's like, I just need to go take a quick walk, or I need to go get like a water or coffee or step outside or do whatever, 60 seconds for myself, just something to break things up a little bit. So yes, I think it's a lot more intentional, a lot more present with one another. And I think that presence for me is very important, not just doing the motions. 'Cause it's very easy to go in the motions and be like, I was in that meeting and then I was in the next meeting and I was in the next meeting. It's like a badge of honor and say I was in all these back-to-backs. That's actually not— how effective were you in those meetings? Sometimes you could do, be as effective as you were in a 4-hour meeting in just an hour. And you're like, well, I was fully present for that hour and I had 4 different meetings. Or you could be like, I was 10% present. Over 4 hours, what's better for you and what's better for those individuals around you. And so I've, I've just tried to be a lot more intentional that way. The other thing I've tried to do now is I try to get a little bit more sleep for myself. I've not been very good at that, but I realized that, you know, it's, it all compounds. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's around the exercise, it's around the diet, it's around the alcohol intake. And I've been a lot better at that.. And so not eating so late at night, not drinking so much during the week, really cutting out a lot of that. And it's helped me to be a lot, again, a lot more present, not just at work, but also with my family. And so, cuz they go hand in hand. And so a lot of times if I'm not my best self at work, it's hard to be that at home. And so I wanna make sure, how can I be more present?

Yeah, I love that. You know what I do for myself when I coach my clients and all the time is to really think of yourself as an athlete. 'Cause if you were an athlete going for the gold, if you will, you would be mindful of your alcohol intake, you'd get more sleep. And that's true of your role as a spouse, as a parent, as well as your role in the workplace. And I think if we looked at ourselves that way, we would change our habits.

Yeah, yeah. And I love that athlete analogy. In the book, I actually had Carl Nassib, he was one of the people I interviewed, and he came out as the first openly gay player in the NFL. And one of the things he said was until he came out, he wasn't able to be his best self. But when he did, the weight of the world was just lifted. And the thing was, not only did he continue to thrive in the NFL, then he continued to thrive after the NFL as an entrepreneur. And so it just kind of shows that like sometimes to be your best self, to, to, to kind of unlock things that you may not realize, like an athlete, you have to, you have to be, you have to be able to feel comfortable in that.

Yep. And to be honest with yourself. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. And then another one is as part of Mental Health Awareness Month, I interviewed Jordan Chiles and she, as an Olympian, would often talk about things that she would do. And I love some of her techniques and, and some of her techniques were to limit social media. And, and as a young adult in college to be like she was limiting social media was just incredible. But she also acknowledged that her mental health has been a journey and she equated life and friends as Sour Patch Kids. Some were gonna be sweet and some were gonna be sour. And I, uh, and I love that too.

I love that. That's so great. That's so great. David, just a few more questions. What do you wish you had known earlier on your journey?

You know, if I, um, I, I, I often talk about this. I, when I was younger and especially in the workforce, I was in banking and I was under, I felt tremendous stress and pressure and I didn't have products like Calm. I didn't have the conversation that was happening today in the world. I just felt at times very much alone. So I turned to very unhealthy habits. I turned to habits around smoking, which I wrote about in the book that I had to explain to my own children. I turned to habits, you know, at times with overeating, just relationships with food. It just compounded. I also recognized over time that if I continued these habits, how unhealthy it was, it was taking me down that road. And after years of kind of doing it, and so if I were to go back today, and have products like I had today or the conversations, I, I know that I wouldn't even have entertained some of that because I would've had people to have conversations with. I would've had apps like Calm or others to go use. I would've had books to go read or podcasts to go listen to. I didn't have any of that today. So today you have so many tools that are available to you that you can go use there out in the world that do and can lead to a healthier and happier life. That I wish that I had when I was younger.

Beautiful. I totally hear that. And that's really powerful and powerful, I think, for other people to listen to this. Now, last question. What advice do you have for other founders as they embark on their journeys to grow into leaders?

I often talk and would recommend this is to recognize that, have the conversation around mental health and your own journey in the workplace. It is not weakness. It is absolutely strength. Will absolutely lead to a more resilient workforce. The conversation is happening again at your office and you may not recognize it, but it is happening. The world is much— operates at a different pace today than it did when, you know, if you look 10 or 20 years back with technology, with the aging population, financials, everything around us in the world. So stress is there. So if you recognize that, your employees can be in the green as long as you kind of have some of these conversations and can bring their best selves to work. And so I encourage them to have the conversation. Don't not have the conversation. And also give your employees the tools and the space. So, you know, for EAP tools, employee assistance tools that are out there, get them products like Com or others. That's a little bit of a promotion here, but make sure you give, give them those. Make sure they, make sure you have, you know, things around what we talked about, techniques about being more communicative and helping them understand the why. And I do think if you do all those things, whether you're a veteran or whether you're just starting out in the workforce, you too can have a better mental health journey going forward.

Beautiful. David, thank you so much. And I just want to really call out that— I'm going to say your book again. It's called Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery One Conversation at a Time. And I just want to say I love that book. And it is really a resource for everybody listening to think about how to help their employees, for sure, how to help yourself. And David, as you talked about throughout this discussion, You've interviewed a lot of really interesting people, so very successful people, diverse people who share their own journeys, and everybody will find it very interesting. Like it's a good read, but also I think very useful. So I wanted to say thank you for talking.

Thank you for that. And just know that all proceeds go to NAMI, of the book and the podcast. So that's the National Alliance of Mental Illness. It's community-based. So it is, you know, there's apps out there like Calm that can help, but for a lot of people too, they need community. They need other people to talk to in person. That's where organizations like NAMI are excellent. They're all across the country, and I wanted to support them as well. And so all proceeds of the book go there.

Amazing. Amazing. And David, just shout out your podcast, the name of your podcast too. It's new, right?

Called Recharge as well.

Uh, okay.

It's out and we've got some amazing people. That will be here for the month of May. We start off with Kevin Bacon. Woo!

Woo!

We'll have Chelsea Handler, we'll have Jordan Chiles, so just to name a few.

Love it. Love that name dropping. All right, David, thank you so much. I love this conversation. Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening to From Startup to Grownup. If you like what you heard, give it a review on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. And if you know of a founder or someone else who is meant to be on this podcast, drop me a line through my website, alisacohn.com.