Is Your Entrepreneurial Journey Making You Unhappy?
In this episode of Entrepreneurship Simplified, host Mike Michalowicz and co‑host Amy Cartelli explore the hidden mental‑health challenges that entrepreneurs face while weaving in personal anecdotes that illustrate broader principles of responsibility, community impact, and self‑care. Mike opens by stating his mission to simplify entrepreneurship and reduce entrepreneurial poverty, then moves into how personal finance intertwines with wellbeing, using Maslow’s hierarchy to explain how money scarcity can erode relationships. They recount the tragic suicide of Kate Spade as a stark example that external success does not guarantee mental health, and discuss the need to redefine success beyond revenue. The conversation introduces the "Wheel of Life" framework for balancing eight life domains, and critiques the cultural myth that more money equals more happiness, describing the "scarcity effect" when wealth feels fragile. A memorable segment features Mike describing his daily habit of walking the streets of Bhutan to pick up garbage, using gloves and a picker, even when the items are unpleasant. He frames this act as a personal commitment to change, noting that his visible oddness sparked curiosity in a child and her mother, leading to the first "recruit" in his environmental‑stewardship cascade. This anecdote serves as a metaphor for entrepreneurs taking small, visible actions that can inspire others and create a ripple effect of responsibility. They highlight the importance of peer support: mastermind groups, forums, and community transparency help entrepreneurs share struggles, receive practical help (even financial assistance), and break the isolation of the founder’s journey. Mike shares personal anecdotes about family support, his daughter’s piggy‑bank, and his own periods of functional depression, illustrating how small, incremental actions—breaking tasks into minute time blocks, journaling to expel thoughts, daily exercise, disciplined sleep hygiene, and meditation (including Transcendental Meditation and nature walks)—can restore mental equilibrium. They recommend concrete tools such as the SAVERS routine, therapy (with resources like Psychology Today), the 988 suicide‑prevention line, and professional help. The episode also touches on modern risks like AI‑generated voice deepfakes, urging verification, and briefly mentions food‑waste awareness as an example of personal responsibility extending beyond business. The closing includes a light‑hearted, self‑referential moment about needing to use the restroom, followed by a call to action for viewers to subscribe, like, and enable notifications, framed as mutually beneficial support for the channel. Throughout, the tone remains conversational, supportive, and candid, aiming to equip entrepreneurs with practical mental‑health strategies while demystifying the myth that wealth alone ensures happiness.
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Entrepreneurship is hard, but the process can be simplified. You can achieve success faster, sooner, and easier. I'm Mike Michalowicz and I'm on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. My goal for this episode and every episode is to serve you on your journey. Let's start right now on Entrepreneurship Simplified. I wanna welcome our guests, our listeners to Entrepreneurship Simplified. Our goal here is to make entrepreneurship more accessible. And if you are an established entrepreneur or a newbie, there's stuff to be discovered here. Because when you simplify the journey, you can get to your outcome faster. And I, and I do believe many entrepreneurs unnecessarily bring complexity to the journey. So that's our goal here. One of the challenges that we're gonna talk about today is, is mental health.
Yes.
Uh, but before we do that, I wanna introduce you first. Can I do that?
Sure can.
You are Amy Cartelli, a longtime friend, a long-term colleague now.
Yeah.
And you are pivotal to our organization in many facets. You're interfacing with our customers now a lot, which is important, our readers, and just giving them support and love and giving them direction to get more resources. And it's a joy doing this podcast with you too. It's another way to be of service to our community.
So thank you. Thank you, Mike. It's an honor, honestly, to do any of the work that I get to do for this organization. It really is a gift. I love the way we serve. Yeah, me too. And you are Mike Michalowicz, the author of many business books, among them "Profit First," "Clockwork," "Pumpkin Plan." Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, different. And a new one coming out.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna reveal the title yet, but it's the first time I'm delving into personal finance.
Can't wait.
And the reason is why I decided to write this book is I think we've really impacted quite a few entrepreneurs with their finances in their business. But if your finances at home struggle and your business is strong, your home will leach off the business or vice versa. So you need both those facets managed.
Do you know anybody who's ever been able to completely live a separate financial life from the one they live at home, from the one that they have with their business?
Rarely. I mean, there's partnerships. So if you and I were business partners, I have an expectation of financial integrity to the business to you also. And so maybe I'm a wreck at home financially, but because there's an expectation here, maybe the business will be a little healthier.
Yeah, I see that.
Okay.
But— Eventually.
Eventually, yeah, yeah. And it's like, hey, Amy, can you do me a favor? I'm really struggling at home and we have to do a little more. And so all these little games kick out, you know, get played and things can get pretty ugly pretty quickly. I've never seen, that I can think of, a case where people are sound financially at home, sound in their business, and they still struggle in some other capacity. When you're sound in both areas, gosh, that smooths over a lot of things.
Yeah.
One very interesting thing is I'm writing this book on personal finance. One of the most common consequences is marriage, uh, relationships.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And what my conclusion is, is based upon Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the foundational levels are physiological, food, water, breathing, sleep. And then right after that is safety needs, protection from environments, um, like bad weather and so forth. Well, what facilitates safety and physiological needs is money. I need money to acquire food, to have, uh, a roof over my head. And when that's compromised, some of those elements are getting compromised. The next levels up are belonging. That's our relationships and so forth. Those things are secondary to those needs. So when money isn't available, we go to this foundation of needs and we start ignoring or harming our relationships.
Interesting.
Yeah. But once you have enough money and you can properly address physiological and safety needs, then we can elevate to the needs we have of belonging, connection, love, and so forth.
So cool.
Yeah. Interesting. So that's my conclusion.
Very interesting. All right. So today we want to talk about mental health.
Yep.
And maintaining mental wellbeing while pursuing business goals, which is not exactly necessarily easy.
Mm-hmm.
Actually quite a challenge. I do wanna say there is a trigger warning here. We're gonna be talking about a death by suicide.
Yeah.
So just put that out there. And the story I'm gonna start with is a very sad story of Kate Spade, who founded her handbag and accessory line with her husband and best friends in 1993, and very soon had an incredibly successful business. They sold their shares of the business in 2006 to Neiman Marcus. The brand was ultimately acquired by Coach to $2.4 billion.
My God.
Quite a success story for these entrepreneurs. And in 2017, started a new brand, Frances Valentine. And in 2018, died by suicide. She had been suffering— Kate Spade had been suffering with depression and anxiety for years, and her sister expressed that one of the reasons Kate declined going to a facility for help is because she didn't want to impact the brand's positive persona. Oh. Heartbreaking. Like, kind of takes my breath away. The idea of, uh, running this business which is so outwardly up and fun and colorful and alive and happy, and the person behind it all is just struggling to make it. And we're sharing her story because it's an example of a successful entrepreneur.
Yes.
Who, uh, is succumbing to the pressure of succumbing to the pressure of running a business.
Yeah. I was shocked. We were doing prep yesterday for this and I did not know she passed away. I know the brand, the Kate Spade brand in particular so well.
It highlights that mental health cannot be determined by success and wealth.
Yeah. And maybe success and wealth are not synonymous. Maybe we have to have our definition of success. There's an exercise I do in some groups I'm in called the Wheel of Life. Have you ever heard of this? I think we did it here for a bit of time.
Yeah, I think so. Basically, it's a wheel.
A circle, and in the center point, or emanating from the center point, is little pizza slices. And so maybe there's 8 slices, and I don't remember what they all were, but one is physical health, next one is family, next one maybe finances, and so forth. Then what you do is you go through each category and you identify where do you feel you are, because at the end of the day, it's all feelings and interpretation. And then wherever your wheel is short, maybe in friendships, which was one of the categories, then what the wheel teaches us, we got to start focusing our energy there. The idea of this wheel is that it can only spin when it's balanced.
Ah.
And maybe that is a good definition of success. I think there is this perversion in the way we think about entrepreneurship that Kate Spade was successful. And We will say, well, $2.4 billion, you can't be more successful than that. And the reality is, I don't know if she was successful. She has to define that.
Right.
And maybe it was out of balance. The fact that she chose to die by suicide maybe indicates that wheel was wildly out of balance. I also think, and I get it, like not wanting to harm your brand image, but I wonder if that further facilitates this perversion of this, we got to put this perfect persona out there. I don't know because it's never happened, but I don't know what I've judged that she's going to therapy, seeking health or help, or would I have applauded her? Simone Biles, one of the most accomplished Olympians of all time, I think by the general public is applauded for bowing out of some of the competition in the prior Olympics for mental health. Right. And she was so recognized. She was at and continues to be at the pinnacle of success. And in that moment she says, I can't do this right now because my health. And my perception is the world applauded her.
Yeah.
Said, my God, thank you.
I do feel like the stigma is rolling back just a little bit that people had about others seeking mental health help.
My wife and I were talking about the greatest generation, which, I think your parents were just on the cusp of that. My parents too. My dad was in World War II, and that was kind of the time frame. My mother was in Germany when they were getting bombed in World War II. And I heard a different term for them, not the Greatest Generation, but the Silent Generation. My parents never spoke about— you just don't say it.
Yeah.
That was mental health back in the day. You just don't say it.
You just shut down.
Shut down, shut up. And if you got to drink it away.
Yeah.
I think that's been a huge development for humanity is we gotta talk about this and let the steam out.
Yeah, absolutely.
'Cause otherwise you're gonna harm yourself or harm others.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I just wanna add a note to this. Any of our listeners, if you are experiencing a crisis of any sort, there is support available for you. I think there's a line, and I know I'm jumping a little bit ahead, but is it 988 you can dial?
Yes, yeah, if you can dial 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, it's free, it's available 24/7 if you need someone to talk to.
Yeah, we need you. We're on your team here. And I also appreciate how dark things can get. A serious conversation that you and I and Kelsey had, I asked a question of you guys yesterday when we were prepping. I said, have you ever contemplated suicide?
Yeah.
And the answer?
The answer is yes for me.
And the answer is yes for me.
Yeah.
It was yes for Kelsey.
Yep.
And then, but my thought was, is maybe there's different, degrees of consideration.
Yeah.
But I also want to emphasize that that is very common and normal. And so I think without me being exposed to that, I criticize myself if I ever even thought about that. Like, oh my God, who am I thinking about that? No one does that. Am I crazy? What's going on with me? No, no, no, that's normal. It's normal. So if you, our listener, have ever been to any degree of contemplation, consideration, even planning, that, that's also normal.
Yeah.
And it's, it's necessary for us to start talking about it.
Yeah.
And letting it out and getting help as necessary.
And unfortunately for entrepreneurs, kind of ties in because there's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress that comes with running your own business. So, yeah, a study by Michael Freeman and colleagues in 2015 found that entrepreneurs have a higher prevalence of mental health issues compared to the general population.
Yeah, I believe it.
It's a lot of stress. The study highlighted that mental health challenges are common among entrepreneurs, which could potentially contribute contribute to increased suicide risks. So we really want to have this conversation around mental health, but specifically, uh, with the focus on entrepreneurship and—
For sure.
That are there.
What I believe is when I own a business and say you're my customer for my business, there's a necessity for me to put on an air of we got this all handled, right? Because if I don't, I also know I may be compromising your perception of me, right? I have a company doing some electrical work at the house. So I'll use that as an example. Could you imagine, I'm your electrical contractor, I'm coming to your house and I'm like, you know, we were a disaster the last few days, we lost parts, we're really struggling financially, I'm overwhelmed, exhausted.
I've spent the last 2 hours crying.
Crying, yeah. All right, now let's get the work going.
Yeah.
I don't know if I want you as a customer. So what I'm trained I'm using air quotes, there's not a formal training for this.
Right.
Maybe there is, is to put out this perception of success, of fluidity. So I'll come and say, "Hey, we're here to do the job." And inside I'm like, "I don't know if I can do this job, but to you, I have to do it." So part of it, there's a necessity that we have to put on a presence to give our customers confidence. Yet on the flip side, we think that we have to present ourselves that way to every human being.
Right.
So on social media channels, everything's amazing. To my colleagues, perfect day again. When I come home to my spouse, nailed it. No, we need these outlets to speak the truth.
Right.
I think we do a great job here. We went through an unexpected financial challenge a year and a half ago. And I immediately came into the office and said, guys, we, here's the situation. I ask that we pray for not, us, but pray for the other person involved in this situation. And we did. And that we, we now get together and I spoke openly about it so people know what's going on. But, but really it's so I can alleviate that. If I held that in, you can't carry that on. You start boiling and starts boiling. There was such relief of just letting it out.
Yeah. And to get that support and to be on the same page with everybody and to share with your team where you're, where you're at emotionally and energetically.
Yeah. It was a rally point. Yeah. And so our team's like, "Hey, we got this. We're going to keep chugging along." And if I came in and was having a particular dark day, people are like, "Get it. We get it." There was this instantaneous support. I think there's also, and this is what really frustrates me, Amy, is there is this pumping of an ideology that the more money you make, the happier you'll be. And I got to call bullshit on that.
Tell me about this.
Okay. And I do have one little asterisk. I've had situations with no money for a long period. I have situations with a lot more money. And it is a lot easier when you have a lot more money. Everything's a lot easier. There's no question. But for me and for the people I've observed, it has not had any influence over contentment and happiness. And I think it goes back to that life wheel. Ironically, For some, more wealth allows for these quick hits. It's almost like the effect of a drug, I presume, is you get a momentary dopamine release. It's like, that was it. And you go for it again. So for some people, money becomes accumulation. And it's like, oh, I got to get that expensive car or item. And it's like, oh, this is amazing. I have it. It's like, well, that was it. And then we go for it again and again. Others, it's expression of power. Mm-hmm. "Look at what I can do." And are significant. And you get some accolades from your friends, or not friends, and they fade away. And it's like, hmm. So we keep going for those quick dopamine hits. There's another effect, which is the scarcity effect. This is the most bizarre. I have an acquaintance who sold his company for over $100 million.
Wow.
It was his life dream. Gets it. He goes in front of myself and some other groups. He's like, "Since I got this money," he goes, "I am in the most fearful state of my life because I'm so afraid of losing it now." There's too much to lose. Yeah. I've gotten what I've always wanted, and now I'm like, So terrified I'm going to lose it. And so just, he's more sad than ever before. It's the most bizarre thing.
So that scarcity effect refers to the scarcity of security and comfort that you have.
Yeah, to me is the scarcity of I have something that can vanish.
Ah, it's all fragile.
Yeah, yeah. So you have the financial means to access pretty much anything on this planet.
Yeah.
And he's more terrified than ever before. Conversely, I just heard a story. I have a friend who's a business coach. There is a business, a law firm he's working with that helps with immigration law. And this person is making a huge amount of money. When I say huge amount of money, I want to say over $10 million a year in a salary.
Okay.
Maybe even more than, maybe even like mid-tens, like, you know, 50, say $50 million a year. Huge amounts of money. That person, she just had an offer for a company for, I think it was $700 million to buy his business, right?
Wow.
My friend, his name is Scott, he goes to her and says, "Let me ask you something," because she's like, "Should I sell it or not?" is the question.
Right.
He says, "Do you have everything, every physical possession you want?" "Yes." He said, "Do you have the finest healthcare?" "Yes." "Can you provide for your family and friends at the level that you want anytime you choose?" She said, "Yes." He goes, "So will $500 million or $700 million get you anything that you don't already have access to?" She said, "No." He says, "So why would you sell the company?" Because then he said, "Doesn't this give you joy?" So her backstory is her husband had immigration challenges that actually put him in jail and she couldn't find a lawyer to do it. So she became that lawyer and started this whole thing. She's like, "No, I am here to serve people in these challenges." He's like, "Then you're living your life's purpose." Right. Mow money ain't going to make—
Yeah.
Mow anything.
Because the only other value would be the time that you gain. If you sold the company and you wanted time for other things, other pursuits, well then yes, maybe. But if that's not your goal, that's not your endgame, and you enjoy what you're doing and you enjoy the service you're providing.
That's right. Entrepreneurs need to get really raw with themselves about what is their purpose and happiness source outside of the money. And yes, you will find ways and you need to generate money to sustain the business components and where money is a facilitator.
Yeah.
But it's not, it's a means to the end. It ain't the end. I didn't understand that when I was younger. I thought like Gordon Gekko from Wall Street was like, he's a hero.
Right.
Greed is good.
Right.
Total nonsense. It's a total lie. Impact is good.
Yeah.
Caring for your community is good. Using entrepreneurship to express who you are is good. And the money is important, but it's not the source to happiness.
Nurturing your familiar and friend relationships has gotta be a pretty big part of getting through your mental health issues. You had incredible support even from young kids. I mean, 'cause one of your first crises with your company—
Oh, my daughter, yeah.
Yeah, it was with Adela offering up her piggy bank to help support the family in your time of need.
Yes.
And I don't know if that was, a comfort to you, or if that really just like pulled on the, oh God, I got to provide, kind of—
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was honored. So my daughter— I came to my family and said, we've lost everything because of me. And my daughter volunteered her piggy bank at 9 years old, says, Daddy, you know, I got us. And it was very humbling for my daughter, who was saving nickels and quarters to buy a horse one day, to sacrifice a dream to support me. It was embarrassing too that I put our family in that position. So in reflection, not in that moment, but reflection back to that day is like, I will master money.
Yeah.
Because it is a tool, but it's not the source of happiness.
It's not the source of happiness.
I will tell you that probably the greatest story in family support that I don't know if I've told you. I remember I was living in Rockaway, New Jersey, and I told Krista, I said, "I want to become an author." She responded appropriately, not her words, but basically, "Authors don't make money. Are you crazy? You think you're going to be the next Stephen King? That's a 1 in a billion. It's equivalent to saying, 'I want to be a rock star.'" Right. Okay. Basically, no one makes it. She goes, "What are you going to do to earn money because we have to sustain?" I said, "No, I got to do this." I put fear in her unintentionally and never wanted to do that, but I did. But I also felt called to do it. I wrote the first book, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, and I got a letter that I printed out from someone that was so kind and said, "This book has served me in such great ways. Thank you for doing this." And I showed Krista and she read the letter. I remember she looked up, she goes, "Oh." She goes, "I get it now. This is your life's purpose." Oh. So she said, "You have to do— you have to be an author." And she was willing to roll the dice because she knew I had to, quote unquote, roll the dice.
Right.
Here's— and maybe this is just my life experience, so I can't speak to others, but when I'm in alignment with purpose, so I have a calling to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. That's the term I use, but I feel so called to do it. It does feel like this unstoppable force.
Yeah.
Like I get up every morning, I could not wait to come in today and record the podcast. I'm like, oh, we may impact someone here.
Right.
I can't wait to write a book. I can't wait. To do these things. There's an energy. In the past, I think it's running away from struggles. Like, I gotta just earn money so I don't struggle.
Right.
That's— you don't run that fast. But when you're running towards something, when you're getting pulled in almost magnetically, it's this energy that I can't equate to. And this may just be my story. The money finds its way. You still gotta work really hard to figure out how to do it. It's not like magically it just appears in your hip pocket. But when you're really of service because it's really of purpose to you and you're really caring for other people, money comes in. Yeah.
There were— When that connection is made, which—
That connection is made.
Yeah.
There was an author who says, if you want to make millions, serve millions. I want to expand on that. If you care for millions or contribute to millions, you will make millions. These athletes, it frustrates me when someone says, oh, athletes can make so much money, they don't deserve it. They're entertaining millions of people. They're giving people an outlet of expression and relief and joy and happiness and sometimes frustration when it's the Hokies. My God, you guys got to win. But they deserve that money for how they're serving millions. I want to expand that we can also serve individuals deeply, maybe millions of layers deep. So that doctor who's doing that heart surgery that saves someone's life, also she deserves millions. Yeah. And maybe the person who volunteers at the local food shelter is impacting their community. That's millions of depth. And maybe, maybe the compensation won't be financial, but it'll be the gift of recognition and reward that they just give themselves.
Right.
The good feeling. I just wanted to point that out. I think entrepreneurship is a vehicle for being of service deeply or broadly, But often there is recognition financially, but also in just good feelings. I feel good about what we do.
Right. And which supports your mental wellbeing and strength. What do you think about in terms of supporting an entrepreneur and the mental health game, the importance of masterminds and peer groups? Talk about that with regard to entrepreneurship and the stresses and struggles.
Yeah, it's so healthy to be in a mastermind. I've been in one almost since I started my businesses. So over 25 years I've been in, not the same one, but I've been in masterminds. So here's what a mastermind is, because this has also come bastardized. A mastermind is not a guru— I hate that label— who then espouses, here's my—
Wisdom.
—stream of wisdom. Everyone's got wisdom. What a true mastermind is, is the understanding that the collective wisdom is more powerful than the individual. So it's the ones I'm in, usually 7 to maybe 10 or 11 people. That seems to be the best size because there's intimacy. Then the challenges, the opportunities, the topics come on the table and the group collectively works on it. So instead of one brain working on what challenge, you got 10 brains working on challenge. Well, I'm in a group and I went through a very difficult time in my business after losing everything.
Yeah.
My daughter offers the piggy bank. And we did an exercise of sharing with each other our challenges. And this group embraced me and gave me ideas and thoughts. And a couple people, not asked, said, "Mike, we'll give you money to help you out." Wow. It was unexpected and beautiful. And that's not an expectation a mastermind should have. It's just the idea of the collective thought, but it's also shoulders to cry on. And that's probably the most important thing. Entrepreneurship is effing lonely. Like, it is a lonely sport. You talk to any of the folks in your community or friends, most won't be entrepreneurs. And so the day you start your business, like, "Oh my God, you must be so happy making so much money and life is perfect for you. And I got a sucky job." They think you're crushing it. And you're like, "All I do is work and I got no money. My family doesn't even like me anymore. That's my life." Yeah. The entrepreneur community is unique. So surrounding yourself with other people and getting together periodically, we do it once a month face-to-face is how we do it. Not even on Zoom, face-to-face. Is powerful. And just, you have a shoulder to cry on at the bare minimum.
Right. And do you find that most people are willing to share within the mastermind the real struggles? I mean, that's where the value is. So you would hope that they do come forward with those struggles because—
Yeah, they are. But it takes time to get there.
Like day one, everyone's like, "Who is it?" "Who's going to share that?" "Who's going to share that?" "I don't know if I want to tell them about all the problems in my company." "Yeah, my wife hates me." "Yeah, yeah.
And I don't want to look like I'm not a great business leader." Yeah, but when the first person is willing to share a little bit, the next person, and it starts this cascade.
Gotcha.
My first forum, we call them forums. I was in this group called EO, Entrepreneurs Organization, and they have these subgroups called forums. But at Mastermind, fortress is a term we use. You can use any of these terms. The first few months, I got to get to know these people and what can I say? And there are certain protocols in place that One was whatever is shared in this room is not to ever be shared again, even with your spouse, because you could be talking with your spouse about someone they don't even know.
Right.
Saying, "You wouldn't believe there's this dude who owns this medical company and he has a drug addiction." And the person sitting next to you at the dinner table or the dining room you're in may overhear this and say, "I think I know who that is." Yeah. So there is no— and that was one of the difficult things. I came home to my wife and said, "This group of men," It's not a cult. I know it's going to sound like this. Yes. But we're talking about things that are deep. So the rule is I can't share this. And I told my wife, I said, if I do share it, I will be removed from the group. So if they find out stuff, it's immediately removed from the group. And we had an instance where it happened. Someone violated that protocol unintentionally.
Right.
And we said, you shared this publicly, it's gotten back. And it was actually something that was relatively innocuous. We said, the rule is you can't be in the group. And the guy said, he said, "I know, that was stupid of me." And he goes, "I understand the protocol. I'm out." So we definitely have protocols that do that. It takes a little while to get deep.
Yeah.
But it gets deep. But particularly for men, to have men that are embracing each other, crying in front of each other. I see the relationship my wife has with her girlfriends. I'm like, "Oh, I got the same thing with guy friends." And the vast majority of guys I know, Nothing. I was hanging with one friend of mine, he's like, "Mike, you're my only friend." I'm like, "Oh God, oh God." You gotta get into a mastermind.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, it's hard.
Yeah.
There's another bit of advice about find ways to build community outside of your business too. I mean, and I guess that's true too. Think, you know, get your head out of your business space if you can every so often because—
Yeah, yeah. 'Cause it then becomes a tunnel vision.
Yeah.
So all business all the time, Sounds like, what was that in The Shining when Jack's like, "Writing all day makes Jack a dull, dull boy." And he writes that like a million times or whatever, or work all—
Working all day makes Jack a dull boy.
Dull boy. Something like that. He repeats it over and over again. Only doing business, it makes you dull, meaning you're not as sharp as you are. You don't have other insights. I was talking with AJ, my writing partner, and she's like, "No, Mike, one of the best things you do is travel. You get exposure to all these different experiences, you bring them back to the books and enriches the books.
Yeah.
I was just out in Munich, not with a business group. This is actually ended up being a business group, but went out there and I went to an event where I was to tap the keg. The Bürgermeister, it's the mayor, usually does it. And they had me tap the keg. It was a fun, rich experience. I'm talking to people that have all different facets of life, a homemaker, someone who had a career, someone who just had children, someone who just became a grandparent. And so interesting in those stories, you just learn so much more about the human journey. It's a great rounding, is it? It's a sharpening of your perspective and intellect.
Love it.
Yeah. So get outside your group.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's talk about physical exercise, how much that impacts. I know it's a big deal for you.
So into it. It's a big part of your— So into it. Every day's morning is on the rower. Yesterday lifting, tomorrow's lifting. Someone asked me, they said, "What is the biggest determinant of a successful entrepreneur?" That's a loaded question. But I said, "In my conclusion, I see a correlation between someone caring for their health and the health of the business, a direct correlation." Mm-hmm. So someone who physically cares for themselves generally has the healthiest business. I said, "And the reason I believe this to be true is I don't enjoy exercise. I don't get up and say, "Oh my God, I can't wait to lift weights today. This is going to be a great day." This morning I hit the rowing machine. I don't get excited.
You went through the motions.
Yep. But my mind says the best thing I can do for myself is elevate my heart and get some strong cardio going today to really stress my muscle and my skeletal system. It's the best thing I can do. So I do it. I will tell you when I do feel great. It's the second it's done. I'm like, "That was a great workout. Yeah, I really got pumped today," or did whatever. I feel good about myself. And the rest of the day, Today feels great because I worked out this morning. And realize in business there are certain things we have to do that are necessary, but they're not joyful. Like not everything's fun.
Right.
But some are necessary. And people who understand that discipline by caring for themselves do the same for their business.
Gotcha.
But there's always other benefits. You know, health gives vitality, strength, energy, better thought.
Yeah.
You know, all those things. We just are clicking and going.
Right. Reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety. Depression goes away.
That's a big one. Or is reduced. Yeah, that's huge, right? And that's what we're talking about, mental health here. It goes away. I also stopped drinking about 2 years ago, except my rule is if I'm with Krista and she wants to have a bottle of wine or something like that, I will have a cocktail or a drink with her. Or if I'm with some friends and she's present, I'll do it. But otherwise, you've seen me before, I got hairy a few times with booze and I didn't like that about myself. I also—
It was disrupting your sleep too.
Yeah, just one or two. Beers, watching the football game the whole night. I wouldn't sleep well. So I said, you know what, I'm just gonna stop drinking. Oh my God, I feel so much better. So we went on this trip though with my college buddies and everyone's wives and stuff in there. My one friend's making some cocktails. They want some? Like, absolutely, I'm in. So we have some. It was great. That night, slept like shit. And I'm like, you know what, this is why I don't do it. This is why I don't do it.
Yeah, and sleep is incredibly important to your mental wellbeing.
It's my favorite thing. I'm so into sleep. If you—
You track it and everything, don't you?
I track it, yeah. I'm so into it. I believe, this is again, I ain't no scientist here or a doctor, but I believe there's a direct correlation between your health, how you care for your health, and your mental health. So physical workouts, drinking, not doing it, and also sleep. So I'm so into sleep. JJ Virgin, who's a fitness expert, said, "If you wanna be healthy, "lift heavy things, consume lots of protein that builds muscle, and sleep like a baby." And what she meant is when you feel tired, get that sleep whenever you can. Don't push it off. Just fall asleep on the couch, but sleep. Chris and I, we drop our room temperature to 65 degrees. It is chilly in there. We have a noise generator. We have blackouts, so it's pitch black. Our bathroom, if you go up and go to the bathroom, we have a red light only, white light, builds stimuli.
Oh, so when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you might wake yourself up more.
Yeah, you actually do. Yeah, this is what I've heard, so I conclude it to be true, and my experience indicates it is, but I don't know if it really is. If I go to the bathroom and turn those bright lights on—
Yeah, you're up.
Just 30 seconds of exposure to that, it's like, "Oh." Yeah. So we have these red lights, so you can still navigate, but go right back to sleep.
Yeah, smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
And that's where all the brain gets cleared out of all its toxins. That's where your muscles build and everything. So I do think, there's a correlation between sleep and depression. And the better you sleep, the less depression you'll have. I will tell you this, we were talking offline about this structure. So when you're struggling with depression, one of the best ways to navigate out of it, from my experience, is having structure, going into routine. But one of the hardest things to do is to get into routine.
Oh, it's so hard.
So what I found is there's a technique I use and I reduce the the time blocks that I'm considering. So when I'm feeling fine and great, I'll say, "Today I need to do X, Y, Z." That's a time block of today. When I'm feeling stress or anxiety or depression, I did go through a period of significant, what's called functional depression. I did seek therapy. Everyone should seek therapy.
Mm-hmm.
I got therapy and support. When I was going through that period, it was about a 2-year period, A realization that came out of that was I would start the day by saying, "I got to get this done today," and I couldn't even get out of bed.
Right.
I started compressing down those time blocks. And so instead of saying, "What do I have to do today?" I'd say, "Well, what do I need to do this next hour? I need to get out of bed, brush my teeth. I just got to get my teeth brushed." And sometimes even that was too big. Sometimes I was struggling so much mentally that I said, "Just get one foot out of the bed." So in the next 5 seconds, can I get one foot, not myself out of bed, just one foot off the edge? And when I got the The blocks small enough, I was able to get some momentum going, and that became transformative for me.
That's fantastic.
I don't know if that's a good tool according to the docs, but it was a good tool for me.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to give you another tool too, may I?
Yeah, please.
Another thing is journal. Journal, journal, journal. I do it every day pretty much. I haven't done it today yet, but most days I did a paper journal. What I thought a journal was, wrongly, was write down like What's the good things of today? Self-positive talk.
Right.
And a friend of mine, Joe Spano, said, "Mike, a journal is about expelling any thoughts." So he goes, "It doesn't matter what you write, it matters that you let it out." So during periods of depression, I sometimes put angry thoughts. When we're going through this challenge, this financial challenge— A year ago or something. A year ago or so, I would just lay out my thoughts about this, and it'd be anger and disappointment and all those things. But what was fantastic was once I wrote them down, the steam was out.
Yeah, it's like they get captured there in the words on the page. It's a big transformative moment. And I know it's so easy to say, do it. And when you're feeling down, we sometimes resist these kinds of things. We do. But once you do do it, it is transformative.
Transformative.
That actually brings us to our next bit, which is about meditation and mindfulness. Talking about apps like Calm and Insight Timer are great for guided and timed meditations. Journaling, like you said, great way to process thoughts and offer clarity. Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, has many books with beautiful meditations, and I can totally recommend The Miracle of Mindfulness, a great introduction to that. But you yourself have had— you've done some—
TM, which is Transcendental Meditation.
Yeah, can you talk about that?
Yeah, I went through the training. My wife and I both did it. My conclusion— I'm not familiar with— too familiar with other forms of meditation. But, uh, it's just a variant. Yeah, I think any form of meditation is good. What I liked about TM is it's mantra-based, so it's just you say the same words in your mind over and over again. But other forms of meditation could be just pay attention to your breathing, the center eye. All those things are just trying to give your focus to one area so that other things can flow out without being considered. It's the reduction of active thought. Not— it's not easy to meditate.
I was gonna say.
It's not easy. Group meditation, ironically, has been easier for me.
Yeah.
That means there's usually someone guiding you through the process. I also use YouTube. I'll log in and say, "Pull up a meditation," and they walk you through it. So that's powerful. I'll tell you the greatest, cheapest form of kind of mental cleansing for me, just walk in nature. Just go outside. And you can be even in a city, but just—
And we're not talking about exercise. We're just talking about walking in nature. Like, yeah.
Yeah. Look at the sky. Just look at the clouds if you have access to that. Or see a tree, for me at least, it starts deconstructing the anxiety of I need to get things done, I need to move along, and just it brings about a presence. I was working here in Boone. I used to ride my bike to work. And when I lived in Mountain Lakes, I didn't have to go on any main roads. Here I would bike to work and I could. The only problem is there's some main roads with a lot of cars and that's—
In the morning in the dark, it's a little rough.
It's rough. Yeah. Even bright light with people on their phones, not worth it. But when I lived in Mountain Lakes, it was kind of side road. There was maybe 3 cars I'd pass the entire way into Buten here.
Yeah.
Or one day coming in, I got all stuff to do and I pulled over on that bridge that crosses the reservoir between Buten and—
And Parsippany. Parsippany, yeah.
And there was a spider web on there. I was like, "Oh, that's kind of interesting." I looked at it and I saw a spider. It felt like I was immersed in that for a half hour just watching the spider meticulously build the structure. Maybe it was there for 5 minutes. But it was such a transformative moment of just being present and everything just washed away. And I was like, oh, this was a form of meditation, of disconnecting and cleansing the brain, of just observing. And nature is the best source for that. So I invite everyone to do that.
I love that. You know somebody, you have a very fun, funny relationship with somebody who has written a book that actually helped me, developed an app, Hal Elrod.
Oh yeah, he's a great buddy.
Yeah. And he's got some great thoughts and ideas about wellbeing too. He's developed the SAVERS technique, which is something I use in the morning.
Yeah.
So it's, that acronym stands for, and it's, so it's an hour of your morning. It's called "The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod. And it's been really helpful for me. I was in a bit of a low place after some of the cancer treatments.
Sure.
And I started to use that to sort of just, like you said, I, I do know that structure is really good and really helpful, but it's really hard to get into it when you're, when you're low. And, um, I found that his breakdown of just 10 minutes for each of these things was what I needed. If you told me I had to go get in a workout at a gym and move weights for half hour to 40 minutes, I'd have said no, not doing it. I just do not have the emotional capacity.
Sure.
But for him, it's 10 minutes of these things. So I think the SAVERS are silence. You start with 10 minutes of silence. Second 10 minutes is affirmations. V for SAVERS, V stands for visualization. So I'd spend 10 minutes visualizing my day, imagining the very best things happening with my day. E was exercise. So there was like, that was the crux for me. It was just 10 minutes. So whatever I could do standing in my family room for 10 minutes.
Love it.
Or on the floor of my family room. 10 minutes with a couple handheld weights. I just, I put 3 exercises together, but I built on that. R was for reading. Teach yourself something new, learn something new. And then S for scripting. So some journaling at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because they were 10-minute increments, like you said, get the foot out of the bed. It's just the one thing that you need to do in that hour. That was hugely helpful for me.
I don't recall what book it is. I, I, I'm sure it is Dan Heath and Chip Heath, but they basically said, We're told to raise the bar. What's your 10x factor? What's your big hairy audacious goal? And they said, what if we have more success by lowering the bar, these small incremental things? They ran on this experiment and pointed out people make a lot more progress by starting slow and letting it grow.
Right.
As opposed to going all in. And I think that's true for most things. There's another article I read in the last year entitled I'm Addicted to Running, and it was a guy who hates running but wanted to get cardiovascular fit. So he went on ChatGPT and said, "I hate to run, but I know I need to get fit, and I think running is the most accessible thing for me. How do I get addicted to it?" And it said, "Oh, here's the process." Here's what was interesting. It did very micro movements. It said, "Day 1, buy a pair of sneakers." That was it.
Yeah.
But the— so, and then day 2 was, you know, go put them on. But here's what was interesting. It said, "You may not do more than that." It actually constrained it. And it's human nature, when there's constraint, we give resistance. So he's like, "I bought the sneakers. I'm like, 'Come on, can I just put them on?'" Or after trying them on, "Can I—" "Can I wear them?" "Can I wear them for around the house?" No. And he said, "That's the thing." And then so you always were anticipating. And so it started building momentum. And now it's like, "You can only run a mile today." He's like, "I want to run more." It's like, "No." And so now the guy is addicted to it and he runs. He's an extremely effective runner.
Wow.
And healthy. So there's a lesson there. If you are experiencing mental health challenges, depression, don't expect one credit card swipe and this is fixed. It's gonna be small incremental improvements. And there will be setbacks too. Injuries happen. But just little chunk every single day and things could turn around.
Right. Will turn around. I love these, this advice and these tips, but we do wanna encourage our listeners that if you are in, you know, experiencing depression, please, please, please go get therapy. Go look for psychiatric help.
Immediately.
For US folks, you can use tools like Psychology Today or Mental Health Match to filter available behavioral providers to meet your needs.
Yeah.
And explore through your insurance company. They may have a resource for you. Hopefully they do have a resource for you. And if you're feeling a lot of anxiety or depression, you can't wait to see a psychiatrist or a therapist, call your GP, your general practitioner, your primary care doctor. In general, if you're in a, you know, in a really bad way, they can also get you help as well. And, uh, may speed up, uh, your, your care in terms of, you know, getting into the right channels for help.
I found my therapist through Psychology Today.
Yes, yes.
I love that magazine, and they have an online database where you can find folks. That's how I found my psychologist. So check that out. One more tip I have is if you're in a mental health crisis or depression and you're seeking help and struggling to find someone, that's very common. It took me a long time to find a psychologist. I mean, literally 6 months of effort. It's natural for us to want to give up. Find a friend saying, "I need help with this. I don't know if I have the discipline to stay seeking this out. Can you do it?" And so you may be able to transfer that responsibility to someone else.
Yeah.
So you have someone behind the scene that's not going through the emotional challenge or experience that's doing the hard work, right, of picking up the phone for you, you know. So smart. Yeah. So yeah, but don't, don't try to fight through it, you know. Don't, don't try to tough your way through it. Don't be the Silent Generation. All right, do we have any, uh, news we're gonna talk about today?
Yeah, this is a, this is a little creepy and a little weird. A Maryland high school athletic director is facing criminal charges after police say he used artificial intelligence to duplicate the, the voice of the principal of his school, leading the community to believe that the principal was a racist and antisemitic.
Ah, this is—
I remember that article. Stuff. You remember seeing this?
Yeah, it was in the last year or so that broke out. And, um, I mean, it just points to the power of AI. Yeah. I'll tell you a little something we use with AI. I had to record a video for the introduction of Profit First, the app. It's called Profit First App. By the way, it's, it's available now. Go to profitfirstapp.com. And the idea was, or is, is the book is a starting point, but many people read the book and then put it on the shelf. The app is a guide to go through it, and it'll connect you to the Profit First Professional to take it even further. So I'm recording the video, the introduction video to it, and as I leave for Europe for this European trip, Billy Anne comes back and says, "Oh, we updated the technology. We gotta redo the video, but it has to release while you're in Europe." I'm like, "There's no recording studio here. I don't have the gear." I said, "Can we use AI?" And then that became the idea. The introduction video of me The first 10 seconds is the original video, then it cuts to a screenshot and you hear me talking about it. It's not me, it's AI.
Wow.
They took my voice, emulated it, and I can't distinguish it.
Wow.
It just sounds like me.
Yeah.
This tool can be used for good, it can be used for bad. And what that simply means is we got to be highly skeptical and have multiple points of verification. I mean, we can do a whole thing on security one day, but just because I told my mom, if you hear me calling you on the phone, say, Mom, I need $10,000. Let's meet face to face also and then have my sister call you and let's all three of us talk about it before it happens, because it could be a scam coming about.
Right.
So this is a good cautionary tale that don't trust a single source. Go out and verify. We're seeing this in politics. You know, people are faking things and all this stuff. You got to get multiple perspectives, triangulate, if you will, to get to the truth. And that responsibility is on the consumer. We have to do that now. It's sad, but it's true.
But it's true. All right, one more.
And I have to go to the bathroom.
Okay.
I'm 53, Amy, I'm 53.
You're 53 now.
Yeah.
You're such a baby. I've been 53 for a while.
Oh.
So you wanna just wrap it?
No, no, no, we can do one more.
All right, good. Climate change is affecting our food and our food is affecting the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions. So, um, they are doing this thing on— let me see what it was. What was it called? Uh, Trash— Trash Hole. Okay.
Oh, the vegetables and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it's, it's addressing the massive global problem of food waste. So everything involved in making food, as some of these businesses are doing, comes from clearing land and raising cattle to packing and cooking ingredients, contributes to one-third of the world's planet-warming pollution. On top of that, roughly 30 to 40% of all food produced globally gets thrown out, which is a huge problem when it comes to human-caused climate change. So, uh, this one company, Shuggie's, used upcycled ingredients in their recipes that might typically be discarded in other restaurants. Instead of tossing carrot tops, for example, Shuggie's chef and co-owner David Murphy uses them to make his signature chimichurri sauce.
So that's great. Collect it, the scraps, and do more with—
yeah.
I notice in our own refrigerator There's this sauce, a hot sauce that we like, and there's like 6 of them in there. I'm like, "Why is there?" And the conclusion is when I am out shopping, I'm like, "I don't know if we have any sauce left." When Krista's out shopping, she's like, "I don't know if we have any sauce left." And we just keep buying the same sauce. There's like 3 or 4 that aren't even opened.
Yeah.
And they expire. I mean, what a waste.
I know.
What a waste. Our cabins are stocked with food. And I come home and say, "There's nothing to eat." There's nothing to eat, yeah.
I know. There's a— It's his biggest pet peeve, actually.
Is Chris's biggest pet peeve?
Yeah, it's his biggest pet peeve.
He and I would be a great couple.
You two should get married.
Yeah, all right. There's an app out there now that you can just grab random ingredients, put on the table and take a picture of it and tells you what you can make from it.
That's so smart.
I think change starts at the family level or at the entrepreneurial level. I think you and I sitting back saying, you know, the food crisis and challenge is their problem. No, it's our problem. One thing I started, and this is not, I was about to say bragging, definitely not bragging. I pick up garbage every single day coming into this. And I may have told you this story. I was walking home to my car and saw garbage on the ground. Like, God, people are filthy or pigs, you know, whatever the term I use. Right. And then I remember in my mind, I think it was like divine, my mind goes, "You're people." And I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm a pig. Why am I saying it's other people's problem? I see it. I have an opportunity." So I come in with a— you saw me this morning.
Yeah, I saw you come in. I was wondering what you were doing.
That's my garbage picker.
I love that.
I walk every day. I pick up a half bag full on average of garbage.
And you get it out in the street?
All from the street. I'll walk down the street, make sure no cars coming. I'll pick up a crushed can or— there was a bloody tissue today, which was kind of disgusting, but I use the picker, put it in, I have gloves too. And then I throw it in the trash. When I started doing this about a year ago here in Bhutan, and I'm going to do it every day now, I'm committed to it. I was like, people must think I'm a weirdo doing it. And it takes a weirdo to change.
You and Chris are identical.
It starts with us. At a certain point, other people adopt it. And this happened, 6 months ago or so, it was maybe this summer, I was picking up garbage and a little girl was with her mom and she goes, "Daddy, what's he doing?" And the woman looks at me and she goes, "Oh, he's picking up garbage." And she goes, "Can I do it?" I was like, "Yes." Got my first—
Yeah, you got your first—
First other weirdo.
First recruit.
And we gotta do it. And maybe it'll start this cascade, but we have no excuse not to start the cascade.
I love it, I love it.
All right, let's get the hell outta here.
Okay.
I gotta pee.
He's 53, so.
I'm 53, I gotta pee. Well, that's a good t-shirt. I'm 53, I gotta pee.
Trust that I got it big.
Thanks for listening to today's episode. Again, we hope you find these tidbits and techniques you can use. Hope you enjoy the conversation. Mostly, I hope you realize you're not alone in this journey as an entrepreneur. So thank you for being an entrepreneur. If I may ask, please subscribe to our channel, hit the rate and review option, give us as many stars as you feel is appropriate and that we deserve. And if you're watching on YouTube, hit the little notification button too. Honestly, all those things selfishly serve me. Us. So thank you for considering that. And as always, crush it as an entrepreneur. We need your success. We'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
