How Entrepreneurs Can Come Back Over the Edge and Get Their S#!% Together with Sherry Walling

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and today I have Sherry Walling on the show. What's going on, Sherry?

I am doing well. I'm actually sitting here with a broken foot, so I'm going to talk to you and not move and be nearly as animated as you are.

That's okay. I can do it for both of us. Not to worry about that. How'd you break your foot?

Let's start there with a really fabulously interesting story of walking down the stairs.

Okay, got it.

Missing a step and falling down.

That's that new thing called sarcasm you're working on. I never heard.

It is. I'm practicing. What do you think? Like, sort of like a little bit.

Better on the east coast and the west coast, to be perfectly honest. But somebody's got to teach Minneapolis, so I'm glad you're there to show them the way.

Right. I'm a Californian living in Minneapolis, so there's lots of things that I'm experiencing culturally right now.

In fact, I was actually thinking, like, we should really fix this problem on text messaging, because many relationships have been ruined based on that. And now you have the president tweeting from his toilet every morning about to start World War 3. We really need a sarcasm font, right? Instead of JK. LOL. After the problem, after the nukes have been launched, we need something to tell people. Hey, listen, I was just kidding. Sarcasm is my love language. I didn't mean it. And please, let's get off the brink.

You need to know what's coming. You have to have a warning. Fair warning, so we know how to read things.

So I think the sarcasm font is something we can work on in the next 45 minutes. What do you think? Let's get it to people so that everybody has a way to go. All right, so the entrepreneur's guide to getting your together, Keeping your together, keeping your shit together. Let's talk about that first, because so many people out there, besides their sarcastic tendencies, also have this problem where stuff just keeps piling up. It's not necessary, it's not important, but it keeps piling up. So how, in a world of so much noise and so little signal, can people who consider themselves entrepreneurial make a dent and make a movement around what they're doing and keep it from consuming their lives in a way that's, you know, not fulfilling. It's just a bunch of busy work.

I mean, I think it really starts with yourself and who you are. Like, if you are someone who is thoughtful and able to execute and kind of mindful of your own strengths and weaknesses, I think that those kinds of internal skills bring a lot of power to your work. But if you are somebody who has like a fairly fragile ego or someone who is not adept at keeping organized or keeping your emotions under. Under some level of control or at least awareness, then I think you can have a lot of trouble trying to do good work in the world.

Because it's so funny. Like, you see so many people out there, they know what to do. They can even say, like, I know I should be doing X, Y and Z. They can't emotionally get themselves to take action. Can you tell us a story about when you might have struggled with this as well? Because, you know, you're human just like everybody else. I know people out there listening, feel like, hey, you know, this is Superwoman talking. I want to make sure that I have something that I can relate to here. Let's talk about your journey up until this point and how this became your mission in life.

Yeah, I think it became my mission in life because I saw so many people failing at it and really struggling to live meaningful, happy lives in the midst of, like, doing work that they thought is important. And I think, like you say, I have had my own resistance to this. So, for example, my book's coming out in a couple weeks, but it's been on my to do list for like five years. Brad. Like, I'm actually, like, very embarrassed to admit that, but it's been something that I have been thinking about and working on and probably, like, should have done. Like the existential should. Like, this was my life's work that I was just, like, dragging my feet about and making excuses about. And so, yeah, I finally got my own together and I have to write a book about Getting youg Shit Together.

Fair enough. So five years. What was the original idea? How did it change over the time that you wrote it or didn't write it?

It's changed pretty drastically, actually. It's taken much more focus on the life and well being of entrepreneurs. When I first started thinking about writing a book, I had just retired or resigned from being a tenure track faculty person, which I'm not that old. So to have gone through the life of A faculty person and decided like, oh, I don't like doing this. I don't want to be a college professor. Just by going to school for a really very long time, that felt like a really big step. So I still wanted to be a thinker. I still wanted to be contributing something to the world. And so I thought, oh, I'll write a book. But I really had no, like, good idea about what I wanted to write a book about. Just that I didn't want my words to die. Like, I didn't want to kind of leave that role as a teacher and a thinker and kind of fade away into oblivion.

You kind of feel like Benjamin Button to me a little bit. Like you went on this tenure track, 60 year old life, and now you're in your 30s and now it's like, okay, I'm moving backwards. I want to make sure that I get my book out and get my career established and then eventually I'll grow young and die.

I think that's not a bad way to do it. I'm trying to become more and more playful the older I get. I feel like I worked really hard in my 20s and was like sort of a proverbial old woman before I needed to be. And Now I'm almost 40. I'm turning 40 this year and I'm. I'm planning to have a lot more fun.

I love it. And you said your 11 year old actually helped you come up with the title of your book?

Yeah. I'm not sure where he heard that language, but. Well, actually exactly where he heard that language.

ITunes gets up in arms. Then we'll change it. But up until then, you know what? It's a word. It's just a word. Everybody relax. It's going to be really is. And I think the message is the most important thing, right. Understanding that we all have these periods of our lives where we need to get our stuff together, if you will, and keep it together so that we can actually accomplish the thing we set out to accomplish. We can actually have the impact that we want to make. You know, that takes a little bit of practical and tactical. Right. It takes a little bit of reigning in our emotions. Can we give people, maybe listening, just some practical and tactical tips here on how you might go about this?

Yeah. So. Well, first of all, and I will answer your question, but I think the word is actually really important to use because it is a little bit edgy and it does depict this level of franticness. So when you drop something on your toe or you're like Something bad has happened, you've made a mistake, or you're feeling a little bit frantic, or you.

Fell down the stairs.

I fell down the stairs. And I said a different word of the same vein.

Nobody threw you down the stairs. Right. I just want to get really clear.

No, I want to be super clear. There's no aggression in my house.

If you're being domestically abused, just blink twice. Okay? Got it?

Yeah. This is. Okay. We digress. So when it's hot, when we come to, like, the practical strategies for people to keep themselves together, I really think it's a practice of slowing down in little doses. So taking very small amounts of time to check in with yourself. Whether that's a really sort of simple journaling practice, highs and lows from the day, whether it's really making sure that you take time to care for your body, whether it's making sure that you are connecting in your key relationships. I feel like a lot of the things I end up talking to people about are really obvious but also really profound because a lot of us aren't doing those kinds of things and a lot of us aren't making sure that we value ourselves enough to say, like, get a good night's sleep. We don't let our brains be important enough to prioritize those kinds of behaviors.

The answer must be to work harder and burn ourselves out more. It just must.

No, it really never is, Brad.

Are you sure? Because I was just going to work 247 until I died.

Yeah.

You're telling me there's another way.

That's going to be soon.

Character. I don't know if that could work. You're going to. Next you're going to tell me I could have a four hour work week and make 50 grand a month.

I don't have that life. So that's not the book that I've written. The book that I've written is about, like, doing hard things but enjoying the journey as much as you possibly can along the way.

And I digress. But honestly, it doesn't take a genius to make things more complex or to work harder. It takes a genius to make things more simple and boil them down to their essence and then actually do that thing and form habits around that thing. Because it doesn't have to be hard. We don't have to struggle so hard. We add so much noise and craziness and busyness to our lives, figuring things out instead of just doing the things that we know will work consistently. And I have so many clients that do this to themselves. They'll start making sales and start crushing and making all this extra money, and they take on all these new projects that they haven't figured out, that they're not capitalized for. They're trying to add extra layers of complexity. Just do the thing.

Yeah.

See abc. And then your bank account fills up with money and your stress level goes down. You can actually make good decisions. But instead of that, they ditch this and they go off on this other thing that's just that they don't know how to do that. Could take them 10 years to figure out. And a lot of money and costing mistakes instead of just focusing on turning the crank on things that work.

And I think a lot of us are looking for hacks and shortcuts, and a lot of people are selling hacks and shortcuts. Like, take this one supplement, do this one thing, sleep in this way, and it will revolutionize the way that your brain works. And a lot, a lot of that's just not true. Like, if you're going to do hard things and ship and think important, interesting thoughts, like, there are very few shortcuts to doing that, to getting that done.

Especially do something that's relevant and specific and useful and valuable to your niche, your audience, your marketplace, whatever it is. Right. It takes time to develop that. So I'll give a personal example. We have this crypto course that just launched, and we're teaching mastery of trading and investing around this thing of, okay, you're really excited about cryptocurrency. I get it. You see all your friends making money. Eight out of that, 10 people who are investing in cryptocurrency right now have zero idea about investing. Never invested in anything before, which is dangerous because they haven't mastered bottle rockets. Then they want to go play with dynamite. It's very risky. So I try to, you know, get them what they need. But a lot of people come into the course of the expectation. I'm just going to tell them what to buy, what to trade, what's it, you know? And yes, I will share how I'm thinking about things. That's the important piece is like, I'm going to give you the answer, but I'm going to help you get to the answer yourself. I'm going to teach you how to fish and ideally teach fishermen so they can teach other fishermen and end world hunger. Right? These are not skills that should die inside of me because I spent 10 years mastering. And the same goes for you or anybody. Listening is like, whatever you've mastered in your life, make sure you can find a process and a way to teach that mastery because we don't need a lot of dabblers. Dabblers have gotten us to where we are today, which is a world full of problems that we feel like can be solved with just instantaneous gratification, Totally unfulfilled and leaving us completely unsuccessful in.

The long term and pretty disconnected. I love what you're talking about because when we get to a point in our own learning and our own experience where we can make a meaningful contribution to someone else, I mean, not only is that like, good for the world and everything, but it's actually really good for our own mental health. It's really important that we can find ways to make meaningful contributions to other people in ways that they really need. And there are lots of ways that people need help, Whether it's learning about cryptocurrency or it's understanding how depression looks in a high functioning entrepreneur. When we get to a place where we can, like, pay it forward, but also teach something meaningful, it feels really good to us on a kind of neurological level. And it also helps us have the kind of meaningful relationships with other people that are sustaining during the hard times.

Yeah, and I really appreciate that, Sheri. So what have been some people's obstacles to getting their shit together, so to speak? Like, what are the common things that show up in people over and over and over again? Not just entrepreneurs, but people in general. I love to look at entrepreneurs as archetype or this separate class of people, but in reality, everybody can be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur takes resources in areas of low yield and puts them in areas of high yield. That's all they do. They just say, hey, I see it this way, let's rearrange it and put it this way.

Yeah. I think one of the number one challenges that humans face, and maybe entrepreneurs in particular, as that maker archetype, is seeing themselves as special snowflakes. You know, I hear a lot of like, the same excuses of, well, I don't have time. And my, my particular inbox is so very important and heavy. And my particular relationship is more complicated. And I go back and forth between balancing, like, the specificity of someone's individual experience. I never want to downplay that. You know, I'm a clinical psychologist. Like, my job is to listen to people's unique experiences. But I do think that we use our own specialness as an excuse to not do the hard work. You know, at the end of the day, we can all come up with lots of excuses and all of us Can. It's a universal problem. We all feel lonely, we all feel scared, we all feel self doubt sometimes. And our ability to understand that as a universal experience, to talk about it and to come to practical solutions is, you know, that's what makes the difference between someone who ships, who gets something done, who makes something, and someone who is, you know, on the couch talking about what they could do if certain things were different.

Have you noticed too, as you go through your life and you know, I'm a little bit younger than you, not by much. I've noticed that I've stopped paying attention to people who just talk.

Yeah.

Like, I kind of give them a few cycles and I hear them talking and then I pay attention to what actually happens and I hear them talking and pay attention what actually happens. I just stopped giving those people my time and attention and energy because they're literally wasting themselves. And there's nothing I want to, I don't want to get in an argument with them about how they suck, but they suck. And I don't want them around my stuff anymore because it drags me down. And honestly, a terrible thing to say, but I only have so many cycles, you know, I don't have enough time.

And it's an insult to my own experience. You know, like, I did the work to get a PhD. I did the work, I read all of those stinking books, wrote all of those articles and wrote all of those.

Papers and Benjamin buttoned your way into.

A piece of paper, you know, And I have three children. Like, I know what it's like to be in the grind. I know what it's like to come from very little resources and make something and make a career and a life that I'm proud of. And so I think when you sit with folks who are like, here are all of my reasons why it feels really insulting to what I've had to overcome or work my stuff to get done in my life. And so that's just kind of on a personal level, why it's really hard for me to tolerate a lot of like, talkers.

What for you, Sherry, if you had a microphone that magically could reach the ears of everybody in the world, what would you wish everybody knew?

It's gonna be okay.

I like that it feels good and it is your way, all this stuff. Like, I love to ask myself the question, maybe you have a good clinical psychology hack for this as well that you'd love to share. But, but whenever something comes up that triggers me or I feel like I'm getting better and Better at this, but it still happens. I always ask myself the question, is this going to matter in five years? Is this going to matter in one year? If the answer is no, I move it closer. Is this going to matter in a month?

No.

Is this going to matter tomorrow? No. Why does it matter right now? Stuff is just going to keep happening. And the way we react versus responds is the entirety of our human experience.

I like to play the worst case scenario game a lot. I mean, like, worst case scenario, I don't know, someone sues me for my clinical practice or, you know, something, I lose everything, Everything I built. I lose my license, I lose my money, I lose my savings. Like, I actually still believe in my own ability to be happy and have a good life, even under some pretty dire circumstances. When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad in West Africa and Ghana. And I came to know this little community of expats, like people mostly from Europe, who had come to live in this little beach community called Cocobite, which is, you know, on the Ghanaian coast. And they, like, opened this little Italian restaurant and they grew their own vegetables and sort of like hung out by the. By the ocean all day, and they had nothing. I mean, they just had whatever they could make selling pasta to students who were traveling and studying abroad. But, you know, I saw in them, like, a good life. And it's a little bit of an edge case, but I, like, believe that about myself too. Like, if I had to go work at Starbucks, I think I could actually have fun and enjoy the ability to talk to people and meet interesting people. And that, like, knowledge within my own self makes it so that everything else is icing, everything else is a game. Everything else is like, hey, today I have this and I'm gonna enjoy it. Or I have this opportunity, I'm gonna make the most of it, but if none of it works out, I'm gonna be okay.

Yeah. I look at it this way, you'll have a better story if everything went toes up. It's meant to happen. That's how I look at it. And you'd have a great story as a result. And you could build it all back faster because you know all the steps. Right. It wouldn't be that hard. It would actually be a lot easier because now you have the ability to connect with people that you didn't have before.

Absolutely.

As we're doing right now. Right. I have my, my end of the world contingency plan. Get on a plane and go to New Zealand or whatever. And, you know, I just I feel like it actually would be so awesome to start over sometimes. Like, I actually encourage that. Some days I don't want to. I love my life, but, you know, if everything went toes up, worst case scenario, and it all came crumbling down, I could build it back so fast. Compared to what I took to build to this point, it would actually be a lot faster because I would be so clear with that all extra stuff and noise and obligation and responsibility, if I could just walk away from it all. If that's even a thing. I don't even think that's a thing. I think these are worst case scenarios we come up with. I don't think it's possible to start over from scratch. But if you did, you could build it back so much faster. I know you could.

Yeah. And that knowledge brings some assurance. Yeah. That's less to be anxious about.

Yeah. That's the wealth. Right. It's not the money or whatever else you want to use to measure your wealth. I've had money. I've had no money. I've had lots of money. Doesn't matter. I know how to make it. I know how to add value to people. I know to scale that.

Yep.

Simple. That's. That's what we're trying to learn. That's why we're preaching mastery, folks listening at home, that's it, really, because always, always, always, otherwise you're gonna be chasing what's the next thing, what's the next hit, what's the next this, what's the next that.

And often the magical mastery is in the simplest things, like being able to really listen to people. If you can really listen and pay attention to people, you can build any kind of business. If you can understand what people are saying and what they're not saying and what they need and what their intuitions are. So those simple skills are going to see you through, whether you're a CEO or you're a crypto investing genius, or you're making a fabulous caramel macchiato.

Fabulous caramel macchiato. That sounds actually pretty nice right now. So, Sheri, what have been the biggest resources for you as far as, you know, you've had your professional career, which is storied. You know, you're a doctor, PhD, et cetera. You have all these great accolades and things, but what have been the most. The things that have caused you to grow the most throughout your life? Have you done personal development work? Are there books? Are there seminars? Are there masterminds? What are the things that are kind of like, you know, not so known, I would say, like, if somebody were just to Google you, that have contributed.

Yeah. I think that most of my deep learning and development as a person has happened, like, in the backcountry, on a bus, somewhere, in some different place. So. Because early on in my life, when I. When I was 18, 19, I went to Ghana, I've tried to go to somewhere very different, and that's very broad definition, but somewhere very different at least once every two years, usually by myself. And those experiences, whether it's the highlands of Guatemala or, you know, trying to navigate Rome on my own, like, those kinds of things have really shaped who I am and how I see the world. It's also really taught me to watch people. It's fed my curiosity for people, which, of course, as a psychologist, those are my greatest strengths. It's also taught me about how to be patient, how to calm myself down when I'm lost, how to, like, tolerate sitting by a chicken on a bus. So, you know, this isn't. This isn't maybe the normal answer to this question. There's not been one book. There's not been necessarily one thing, but just that, like, determination to get out there in the world and let the world in all of its, like, diverse wildness, sort of shape who I am and what I love.

Yeah. And what about the chicken that had to sit next to you? Honestly, you ever ask?

I know. I feel so bad for that chicken, chickens, goats, small cows.

I can relate to the rum thing, too, because, you know, it's like New York City, except way older. And they don't speak English, they speak Italian. It's just that busy, though. It's just that crazy. I'm actually reading a series of books right now called the first man in Rome series by Colleen McCullough, which are just. They're each like a thousand pages long and just epic. And it really gives you a new, I guess, appreciation for the ways in which we live today, where scores of people would die all the time in every scene, you know, back then, for every number of reasons, from, you know, war to famine to pestilence to this, to that, to the other, to, I didn't like that guy, so I killed him. You know, that kind of stuff just kind of went on. And now, like, seeing our life as a result of all those iterations and generations and learnings and, you know, things like laws and rules and taxes, you start to appreciate a little bit more. Because there were worse things in the past that humans went through to get.

Here, and the hard things that we have to face have happened before.

Yeah. Just because you add a new technological spin on it doesn't mean it's not the same human problem over and over again. Because we, we create these issues. We don't change as fast as we.

It's selfishness, it's whatever.

But yeah, it's fear. It's this and that and the other thing. And the world is getting smaller and we are able to now tap into the learnings of each other so much more quickly. And I think that's creating, you know, despite what we see on the news, which is the fear mongering, it is creating a better world in the sense that we're more connected, in the sense that we can now see the opinions of others from their perspective more often. And that will ultimately wash over you. It's the same effect as you traveling to those places. And I encourage that. I've done a few 23 countries and 43 states now. You know, I've spent time with other people in other cultures and I want to continue to do that because it always brings me back to why did I choose the life that I have? Why is it important to me? What are my values and what are the contrasts that allow me to see, okay, here are the things I chose versus what they were chosen into, you.

Know, and it cultivates empathy.

Yeah.

Which again is a great sort of life skill, but also a helpful business skill. You can understand how people feel and what they need and what they're longing for. When you can get inside of their minds a little bit, that helps you do good work.

I think empathy is the number one trait that I see in all really successful salespeople, influencers, marketers. They can really get inside that conversation as if they were having it with that person at that time. And that's just a skill. Like anybody can develop it, but it's.

A hard one to develop from a book. Like, you have to actually get, you know, get on the bus with chicken and lady and like, figure it out. Figure out that commonality. Figure out how to read and see and hear.

So, Sheri, if somebody were really interested in getting started, this inspired them to take action in a particular way, what would you say is the first step towards building that empathy, towards building that, that muscle of experience and gratitude and all the things we kind of glossed over today, like, what would be your call to action for people listening today?

I think to find a way to help another human in a way that makes you maybe slightly uncomfortable. And, you know, that can be finding an after School program where kids need some help being read to or some tutoring or serving in a soup kitchen or. These don't have to be things that necessarily take hours and hours of your life, but a couple hours spent here and there can be pretty transformative, especially when it's something that's done in contact with someone who you don't usually have contact with. I remember being in high school and had to do community service hours for school, for a project, I think. And I packed food boxes with people who were on like release from jail. So it was like me, like 15 year old me and these people who had been in jail for 20, 30 years or in prison 20, 30 years. And I had some really interesting conversations and it really shaped like who I'm willing to talk to and who I see the humanity of. There's no substitute for just good old fashioned exposure. Getting yourself out of your comfort zone and letting yourself bump up against other kinds of people.

I love it. So get out there, get some exposure, be in service to others that are very different than yourself. And just, you know, it goes to show, like when you start doing that type of work, you see how quickly people can fall into disrepair. You know, you see how quickly their lives can be altered. Not irrevocably, they can always come back, certainly, but it doesn't take too much. A couple things pile on. A death or an illness or this or that. You're a few months behind, all of a sudden you're on the street and that just adds to your problems. The compounding effect is incredible. People think, oh, these people are just lazy, or this. That has nothing to do with that. You know, hard luck hits everybody sometimes.

Sure, yeah.

So being in service can ground you to the things that you have and it can help a person in need. And I think that's a really important thing. Like we build houses in Mexico, you work in refugee camps. And this is not a plug for any of that, but just reminds you that hey, you've got it pretty damn good again.

I'm a psychologist and I help entrepreneurs not be so stressed out. And there's very little thing like when we think about activities that have the most benefit for your mental health. We're talking about things like altruism, helping other people, cultivating gratitude, which is involved in an activity like this. Cultivating empathy. Gratitude, empathy, altruism. Those are the kinds of things that help us realize that our problems aren't quite so big. And that's what most of us need in order to calm ourselves down, is to Just put ourselves in context, put our worries in context. Yes, it's important. Yes, you're working super hard to grow a business and make a life that is valuable to you and meaningful to you. And yes, your worries are real. The kinds of burdens that you're carrying are real. But they fit in this larger history, this larger context of your membership in sort of all of humanity. It gets a little existential, but I think it is helpful to people.

That's beautiful, Sherry. So you talk about anxiety and depression coming up in entrepreneurs a lot. And I know in my own life I've seen those kind of cycles and I've gotten okay at managing them. I put up a post recently about how I titled how I cured my depression because I came to the conclusion after, you know, and I have a very campfire controversy way of looking at this is like it was a choice to be that way and the choices I made that changed it. Ultimately, if I keep making those choices, I keep feeling good. And if I, if I lapse on any of those choices, I stop feeling good and I slump right back into it. And so I know what it looks like, I know what the triggers are. I know how to get at least myself, you know, I don't know if that would fit for everybody back into a good state. What are some of the things that you help entrepreneurs to do when they fall into these bouts of anxiety and depression? Because I still struggle with the anxiety part a lot. The depression part I feel like I've licked at least for right now. I would love to just hear your take on that.

I mean, I think that sort of superpower number one is noticing. Is noticing how you're feeling, being self reflective enough to catch those early signs early, rather than getting to the point where you can't get yourself out of bed or you're so anxious that you're beginning to make really bad decisions or decisions that are irrational or counterproductive. So not much can be done if you don't have your own ability to notice. Wow, I am sliding down the slope. I am not feeling great. Here's how I know, here's what tells me that. And for most of us, early signals look like not sleeping well, like waking up every morning in the morning at 3am and the mind is going and going and going. And if that's not a normal thing for you, but it starts to happen, that can be kind of an early warning sign. Loss of interest in things that we normally enjoy, being really irritable or irritated with people who we normally like like our family members, our significant other. So once we begin to catch those early signs, we can implement those. Sounds like some of the strategies that you've come to where you take better care of your body, you reach out, you get connected, you talk to your therapist, you talk to your mastermind group, you talk to your people, you help sort through why am I feeling how I'm feeling. None of that's possible though if we're not paying attention.

Yeah, I think that early warning system, having other people accountable to that too. Like if you live with people, for example, I tried living on my own, I couldn't do it. So now I live with roommates and I don't want like endless roommates. Like a three, three and a five bedroom house works great, right. And we, you know, I kind of ask them from time to time, like, hey, if you notice me showing up in a certain way, I'd really love for you to just to check in with me and let me know that. Because I'm not always aware, like when I'm stressed, I'm not always aware when I'm anxious, I'm not always aware when I'm not showing up or being present in the way that I want to be. It's not to make me feel bad or shame me or guilt me. It's like, no, you're just a reminder. Like, hey, this is how my experience of you is right now. And it's really helpful just to have that feedback.

I think when you get in that depression or anxiety spiral, it's like your own self reflective capacity can become impaired. It's like you're looking in the mirror but the mirror looks all foggy. You just don't see it very clearly. So you're right. The value of having someone else who knows you well, who can be like, hey, like you got a little something on your tooth. Like, here's, here's me giving some feedback. I'm mirroring you and I can help you see things that you don't see. So if you have someone in your life that can do that, well, that's fantastic. But it's also the value of having a mental health professional in your life or a mastermind or you know, some people who maybe you don't live with but who know you well and who are qualified to sort of do some of that reflecting back and help you problem solve once you start going in a bad direction.

Yeah. And I think it's important not to make anybody wrong. Yeah, it just is what it is, you know, being depressed and being Anxious is part of human existence, and you're gonna feel that way sometimes, no matter how good you are at managing it, especially if you're busy, especially around multiple.

Projects or companies and you're taking big risks.

Right.

That's. That's the corollary, too, is the more of yourself that you're putting out in the world, the more kind of vulnerable you are, and I think the more susceptible you are to depression and anxiety. So that's why I think it's such an important thing to talk about for.

Entrepreneurs, especially when you. When you put everything into a project and it doesn't work out, like, monitor yourself, you know, like, are you handling that okay? It's okay not to. And get the help that you need. Like, at the end of the day, guys, if you need help, ask for help, right? If you're thinking of harming yourself, if you're thinking of, you know, changing your life drastically or making decisions that, you know, you know, are not great decisions, or you're just not in a good place to make decisions right now, ask for that help. Ask for that space. I've had to ask people like, hey, I can't deal with this issue right now. I'm going to give myself a week, and then I'm going to deal with the issue. When I'm in a better headspace. I just know I'm going to make a horrible decision right now. Yeah, all signs are pointing to this is going to be gnarly. Let me create some space. And I've asked people that on my team. I'm like, listen, this is important. I want to address it, but I can't address it right now. Can we ping it till next week? And they're usually like, yes, no problem.

And I think relatedly, one of the things that we don't give ourselves a lot of space for is grief, because we do work on things that don't work out, or we do try relationships or collaborations that don't work out. And we, I think, kind of expect ourselves as professionals to just roll right through the next thing, but without giving ourselves a little bit of space to grief, like little G. I think we risk. The possibility of those kinds of sadness is accumulating into depression. Big D. So we have to, like, own our emotional stuff along the way and give ourselves space to be human when the things that we really doubled down and tried to do maybe don't work out the way we wanted them to.

I think that's a great message. You know, people just need to hear it every once in A while. Like, hey, it's okay. You're good. You know, reach out, whatever you need. Sherry, thank you so much for being here. I want to say how grateful we are for having you on the show and sharing your time and your expertise with us, which I know is vast. And I'm so excited for your new book. Can't wait to check it out. If there was a way that we could give back, you know, whether it's connecting you with a resource, an opportunity, a person system, you know, plant those crops, if you will, the seeds and crops, what would be a way that we can help you?

You know, I. I do what I do because I think it's really important. So I think when I have the opportunity to talk with people about mental health and entrepreneurship, to talk about healthy relationships and entrepreneurship, like, that's. That's what I love to do. So if you need a podcast guest, if you're giving a conference and you need a speaker and you want to have a different kind of voice than is normally at a business conference, then I would love to be part of that. You know, that's the way that you can help me by equipping me to help. To help other people in the entrepreneurial community.

Wonderful. So if you have a podcast and you want Sheri, if you have an event, you need a great speaker, she is available. Please reach out to her. What's the best way to do that?

I live on the Internet at Zenfounder Zen founder. I have a podcast where we talk about mental health and entrepreneurship that is also the place where people can learn more about the book that's coming out soon and all other things that I'm working on in my consulting practice and events and all that stuff. I can also be found@sherrywalling.com Sherry, like the wine. S A G R O Y.

That's. Yeah. S H E double R Y W A double L I n g dot com.

Absolutely.

Right on. Sherry, thank you so much for being here. Any parting words of wisdom for the Make More Marbles community?

It's gonna be okay. Just go out and make a great ship.

I love it. And the name of the book is the entrepreneur's guide to keeping their shit together.

How to run your business without letting it run you.

I love it. Where can we find that on Amazon?

I would imagine that will be live on Amazon February 21st.

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sherry, for being on the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you on behalf of everybody in the Make More Morals community. You're a rock. We appreciate you. We'll talk to you soon.

My pleasure. Thanks Brad.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marvels podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth and relationships. Whatever that means to you. Head on over to makemoremarbles.com check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher, or Google Play wherever you listen to your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.