Why mental health could be your last remaining asset, with serial entrepreneur Paul Meyers in Sin...

Welcome to The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.

This show will tell you how to get the recognition you and your business deserve.

Our guests share their practical insights and tools which you can use straight away. Your host is international entrepreneur, podcast host, and author Jim James. Welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James, and today we're in Singapore. I'm here with Paul Myers. Paul, welcome to the show.

Hi, Jim. Thanks so much. It's great to see you again after so many years.

I know. Paul and I go back the best part of 27 years with one another. He's been an entrepreneur and a pioneer in Asia, especially in B2B and tech and media, but now he's really leading the industry on entrepreneur mental wellbeing and health. Paul, tell us, why is mental health such an issue for founders? Because I thought everyone was on a journey making money and was pretty happy.

Sure, sure. Thanks, Jim. Let me go back a little bit and set it up. Okay. That I'm a multiple times founder. I've had a couple of exits. I've had a couple of train wrecks. I've had a couple of zombies. I've kind of been around the startup industry as it were for about 20 years now. I've been a coach and a mentor and a VC and an investor. And during that time, I've seen both firsthand and anecdotally that being a founder is very difficult. It's not. As glorious as it's always painted to be. And in fact, it's quite difficult and emotionally it's trying. And a lot of founders struggle with it because one, the media portrays it as you have to be successful. You have to be big. And we see Elon and we see Zuckerberg and we see all the big names being successful, but they're like literally 1 in 100,000, 1 in a million where everybody else is much harder. So that's number one. And number 2 is you work very hard for 7 to 10 years and it's all uncertain and all changing and there's no real internal guideposts. And then the third part is nobody talks about it, right? It connotes, or we believe it connotes weakness and failure. If you say help, I need help.

And, you know, you and I have founded businesses together in the same city in Singapore over the years. And I've watched you and I've been amazed by your resilience as well, Paul. So if you work with founders, how do you get them to, if you like, address the biggest problem, which is talking about it in the first place? So recognizing weakness, how do you start with that conversation?

Right. Another good question. So interestingly, here in Singapore where my practice is called Asia Founder Coaching, and I coach founders in Asia, but as I talk to people and I get incoming inquiries and actual coaching numbers, I'd say 7 out of 10, 8 out of 10 are women, are female founders, which is really interesting considering that net 15% of all startups have a one woman founder and 2%, 3% of venture money last year went to female founded companies globally. So if you look at the number of female founders I'm talking to as a percentage, it's quite remarkable. So it's very difficult for men. Still here to talk about that. Okay. Here being Asia, Southeast Asia, women are, it's a little easier.

So how does it work? Do people sort of wait until it's too late or how do you help them to start to think about it before it's too late? Because getting into a business, often you've got enthusiasm, you've often got partners, founders, and support. And it's kind of like a marathon really, isn't it? After the kind of the 10 to 12K, it starts to really feel hard. How do you get them to start to come forward and think about it?

I think part of it here in Southeast Asia right now is just normalizing the conversation. It's okay to be talking about it. I think there are a lot of cultural reasons why people don't still talk about it. I mean, failure is still not very well accepted in Southeast Asia, in Singapore, in spite of Singapore's great effort to make a great startup scene and a lot of money and a lot of structural support, failure is still not talked about. So this connotes that. So normalizing the, hey, I feel bad. Hey, this is scary. Hey, you know, I'm depressed or worse, right? Being able to say that that's all right. And being able to talk to other people about it, just normalizing that process is step one. What I do specifically is I have a monthly mastermind group called Founder Circle that I do, and it's free and I take 10 to 12 founders, closed door, 3 hours, once a month on a Saturday. And we just talk about all those things, founder to founder, open up, talk about what's scary, what's difficult. Sometimes there's tears, sometimes there's not tears, sometimes there's laughter, but everybody comes away really charged and changed by doing this. And I think that's one step and that's something that I can do just to help normalize it. Some of those people turn into clients. Some of those people Don't turn into clients, but I think just making it okay to talk about these things is showing that it's all right.

So you mentioned that, you know, it's mainly women who are coming to the coaching, but women represented in actual VCs and so on is less than 2%. So there's this disparity. Is there a view on why men are not doing it? Is it a simple issue of ego or are men sort of thinking that they can solve the issue themselves or they go to a cave?

Yeah. I mean, you're a guy. I'm a guy. We know how we behave, right? It's hard to ask for help. It's hard to say, oh, I screwed up. You know, it's a joke about men not asking directions with maps. It's the same thing, right? Especially if someone's giving you $10 or $15 or $50 million, like asking for help. Like you don't want to show that weakness necessarily. Right. And you have all these people relying on you. You have your teams and your investors and your partner and maybe your children and your family. You don't want to show that you're weak. You want to show that you have it all together. And that's, that's a very male trait.

Yeah.

Right. It's changing some, but That's kind of traditional male behavior, right? In the West.

Yeah. So there's a fundamental piece of work. It's interesting that if we had an injury, we hurt our leg on the soccer field or we got a cut, we'd go to the hospital to get it fixed. And yet we don't apply the same logic to our mental and emotional wellbeing. So can you maybe give us some ideas of how it can show, you know, how does it manifest in people? Because maybe people also aren't aware of the symptoms. They may feel stressed, but maybe not aware of, you know, the root causes. What would be some of the ways that people talk about their feeling unwell?

I think it manifests itself in a few ways for founders that I've observed and spoken to and my behavior, right? You become less understanding, less empathetic. Okay. I think that's the first thing to go is empathy. Right. Okay. As a leader. You're worried about, you know, they're all valid concerns. Am I going to meet payroll next month? Am I going to hit my numbers? Are my investors going to pull out? Are they going to fire me? I have to fire my co-founder. I hate my co-founder. All those kinds of things. There's a lot of stress there. So whatever your response is when you get stressed out, it's going to manifest itself. So you become short with people. You don't sleep. You don't go to the gym. You don't eat well. You drink more. You do drugs, whatever that thing is. That's where you start to see it. People's behavior starts to change and goes in that direction.

Okay. So quite quickly, do women respond differently? Are women also avoiding the gym, hitting the booze, or do they have different ways of responding? Do you find?

I don't see it as much. I'm not an expert in it, so I don't see it as much. Yeah, I see it much more with men because I'll go out and hang out with guys and guys will talk about it and have 8 beers one night or 10 beers one night, right? I don't see that with women, obviously. Well, maybe not obviously, but I don't see it.

Okay. Well, that's, I mean, reassuring. So what would be, if you like, a framework that if people are listening now and are thinking, yeah, you know, I feel pretty stressed. I don't know. I can't talk to my partner. You know, that's hard to bring it home. Maybe they don't have a co-founder. Maybe you don't want to scare the investors. You know, Paul Myers, with your extensive experience of both the Founder Circle, but also as an entrepreneur, Do you have some kind of framework you can share for people to start to do some self-work?

Sure. The first thing I always recommend is talk to other founders, right? And generally, this is especially true for first-time founders because no matter what business school you go to or what books you read or whatever stories you hear, it doesn't prepare you for the shock of how difficult it is and how stressful it can be. So the people who can help you the most may not be your partner at home, or may not be a parent, or may not be your investor, though some investors are getting better at it. It's people who've gone through it before. And they're like, I know, I hear you, you know, pat on the back, talk it through. And I, um, almost all founders who have been through it are happy to talk to first-time founders who are going through it because they know it's like you're part of this band. You're trying to do something great. You're trying to change the world, right?

But it's difficult.

So let me hold your hand. Let me help you out. And that's the first. And sometimes that's enough just to know that there are others like you who are feeling the same thing that you're feeling. You're not weird or alone or, you know, out on planet X, you know, it's okay. It's cool.

Yeah. And I think that, so we've got people who are starting to talk about it. They might get involved in a group like Founder Circle. Are there some other things that you can recommend once they've spoken, but, you know, They've then got to get on with work and they can't be doing that all the time. And there's some other tools or sort of approaches or mindsets that you can help people with.

Sure. I think taking care of yourself is another big one, right? So I have, I have a talk that I give of 5 things.

Great. Yeah. Show that. That'd be great. Yeah.

And the 5 things really very basically, I go into them in more depth. The first one is talking to other founders. Okay. The second one is touching someone because what happens is we isolate. And when you start to work by yourself, you know this, you're nodding. I mean, we all start to isolate and there's a physical reaction and there's a hormonal reaction to not being touched. Okay. And the opposite of that is when you are touched, there's another hormonal response, which makes you feel good and reduces stress. And it's very helpful, which is why sometimes it's really interesting. I always thought that like cat cafes were the provenance of like teenage girls, you know, going to pet a cat. But actually, if you go to Japan and you go to China, what you see are people going to cat cafes and pet places because it's touching, right? It's releasing these hormones that actually make you feel better. Get a massage, give a massage. You get the same amount of the hormones, you know, when you get it, get or give a massage, any of that kind of stuff. You know, don't be weird, but just like, remember, you're a human being and your body and your whole system really needs that. So that's another one. I like one that I've just kind of discovered for myself is you wake up in the middle of the night and your head's going, right? Just start writing stuff down or getting it out. I do an oral journal now. I record it on my phone. I use an app called Otter, otter.ai, but other people, you know, there's 100 apps out there that do it.

Yeah.

And just like do a brain dump. It could be 3 in the morning. Just get it out and it helps you. I call it the purge, you know, do the purge. And it really helps.

And that's great. You talk about using Otter AI because I get up and I write to a diary, but that, you know, can take quite a long time. So the idea of speaking into it and then you get a transcript.

Exactly.

Anyway, right. And it's all confidential.

And I, I never was the guy who could sit down and journal by writing, but I can talk, you know, I can talk till the cows come home. So I just turn it on and brain dump and it just gets it off my chest. Yeah. Another one that I really recommend, which we forget, is Celebrate. Right. Celebrate your wins. We forget about our wins, right? And whether it's your team or whether it's you, take a minute and say, don't think, oh, now we got to do this, but pat yourself on the back, have a cupcake, you know, go take the afternoon off, go fishing. You know, that's really important to do because we don't, especially as a founder where you have a to-do list of 87,000 things, right?

Yeah. I think in the celebration of small things, it's amazing as well as we know that recognition Is one of the most important elements of job satisfaction.

Exactly.

And it's not money actually, as you know, once people got to a certain level. So if you've got a team around you, giving recognition to them can be as important or more important than giving them a bonus. And, but you say we forget about doing that.

Because you have so many things, right? Yeah. Or the team, because you have so many other things to do. Oh yeah, I just closed this $100,000 sale, but you know, our target's $1.5 million. How are we going to do it? Right. You see, you don't even think about, wait a minute, that was cool. Good job. Shake hands, give a hug, buy a cupcake, eat pizza, go to the movies, whatever, you know, take a moment and celebrate. It makes a huge difference. And then the last of the 5 things is I discovered this. I sold my company and I got divorced at kind of the same time. And so I was a little, I had no idea who I was, right? I kind of lost those 2 identities, right? And it was difficult for me and I was raising young children and I'm trying to figure it out. And what really helped me was volunteering and volunteering to help somebody else. Okay. And in this case, it was helping kids with physical, um, issues, you know, to learn to swim. Okay.

All right.

And just teach them how to swim. And that then expanded into teaching people to read. I think, didn't you used to teach people how to read? Didn't you used to volunteer?

Yeah, I did. Yeah. And in Singapore, I worked with a group called CyberCare. And we got reconditioned computers and put them into children's homes.

Yes.

And then I showed the kids how to get onto the internet and it was reframed the work that I did in the daytime and said, well, here are these orphans, you know, who were delighted to have one computer between 25 of them. And more importantly, someone to go in and share with them how to use it and have the time.

Precisely.

Was really that they mattered was really the point.

Yes. And what I think that does for you as a founder, you as a human who's dedicating their time to volunteering to help someone out, is not think about yourself. You're thinking about someone else, right? I make a joke about it. We made a joke about it. I was a Boy Scout as a kid. And, you know, the Boy Scout motto is do a good turn daily. And it was always portrayed as helping a little old lady across the street. And we, you know, 15-year-old boys snicker when you hear that. It isn't the right marketing message for a 15-year-old boy. But the reality is it's kind of true. And if you can do that and you can help people out and just stop thinking about yourself for a little while, it puts everything in perspective and it balances the world. So I look at that as being important as well.

Yeah. And I think that's really good. And I've been getting up and doing in the morning a meditation around be grateful and do good and be healthy. Right. So let's just talk a bit about health. Any advice you can give people around health and looking after themselves? Because one of the things we all do, and you know, I've been guilty of that as well, is reach for sub— I have never done drugs, but alcohol, coffee, cigarettes.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you and I used to go for a smoke, you know, now I think we've both quit that, right? So any guidance for people on kind of looking after their health and the impact that has on mental wellbeing?

Well, I think that most of us at this age have Addressed most of those bad habits. You know, drugs and alcohol are still a problem for people our age and our ilk. Not so much here in Singapore, but, you know, we do see it. I call it the holy trinity, right? I cook, right? I'd like to cook.

Yes. You've always been a great cook and do great barbecues.

In New Orleans, the holy trinity of New Orleans and Cajun cooking is celery and onions and capsicum. Okay. That's the holy trinity. Yeah. So every Almost every meal of Cajun food has that in it. So the holy trinity of like basic health is eat, sleep, and exercise, right? And that's the stuff your parents taught you and you learned in school and we learned as kids. And we've all had to relearn them 100 times, right? And the hard ways, you know, I smoked, it took me 15 years to quit smoking. It wasn't good for me. And now I exercise every day and I I meditate as well, and I do yoga a couple days a week, and I do those kinds of things because I need to, right? Yeah. But when you're in your late 20s, early 30s, you don't think you need to as much. But now amongst ourselves, we know that.

Yeah. And I think, do you wanna just touch on sort of briefly what happens if people don't look after themselves? Because, you know, we talk about, you know, it's important, but for younger people who are still feeling kind of indestructible, as indeed we did, and then we've all had our moments where we realize we are made of flesh and bone. Just a salutary tale, just, you know, for anyone thinking, yeah, but that doesn't apply to me. Not necessarily an individual name, but you know, what goes wrong if you don't look after your mental wellbeing?

Sure. I think there's all sorts of cautionary tales out there. You stay up too late, you drink too much, you do too many drugs. You know, there was a time in California where cocaine was a big thing and, you know, I had friends who died because they just like You know, I was in the film business then and making commercials and working on features and, you know, people would stay up late and work hard and party hard and you just do too many drugs and, and either their heart would stop or they'd make ill-advised decisions and drive when they shouldn't or get on a ladder when they shouldn't. And, you know, boom, you know, that's it. That's how it happens, right? So taking care of yourself, that doesn't only happen if you do too much cocaine. It happens if you don't sleep. It happens if you don't take care of yourself in other ways, right? That you forget and you think you can continue at that level, but it doesn't work.

No, it doesn't, I guess. And also because most of us are serial entrepreneurs and you need to be well enough to do the second one. If you exit the first one well, that's great. But if you don't exit the first one well, you need to be resilient physically to come back. Paul Myers, you're in Singapore today, but if you want to find out You know, more about you, where can they do that?

So a couple different ways that my coaching practice is called Asia Founder Coaching. And that's the URL as well. I'm on LinkedIn a lot under Asia Founder Coaching as well as Paul Myers. And I have 2 Twitter accounts as well. One is Asia Founder Coaching and the other one for me is Vision Thing, my personal one. So any of those, any and all.

You've got a cool hashtag.

I have a cool hashtag. Which I'm very proud of. Uh, it's Better Call Paul. It has a really nice ring to it. I kind of familiar too.

Sounds familiar.

You know, Better Call Paul, that's sticking in your head, right?

Well, that's why I want to do that when I'm back this week. Paul Myers, thanks for joining me on this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. Share about wellness because we haven't talked about that much, but actually it's a fundamentally important issue for all of us to address. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. Happy to be here. Happy to share.

Yeah, look, it's great. And it's wonderful for me. To be here with Paul. We've known each other for over 25 years and he's an inspiration. And I really do take his advice seriously. And I suggest, you know, if you're worried about your mental health, reach out to somebody and reach out to Paul and get some guidance because we need to look after ourselves in order to look after our businesses. And until we meet again, I hope you've enjoyed this show. Do please share it with a fellow entrepreneur that you think might find it useful, rate it and review it. And remember, the Unnoticed Entrepreneur book is now available on Amazon, all other players as well. With conversations like this one with Paul, all written down for you to have a masterclass of 50 appointments with experts that will help you build your business. Till we meet again, I'm Jim James. Thanks for listening to me in Singapore this week. Until we meet again, keep on communicating.