The Achieve Podcast - Steve Sapourn (The Neuro's Journey)

Welcome to the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight the leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses and shaping their industries. My name is Jesse Warner and I'll be your host today. We're excited to have Steve Saporn with us today. He is the host and creator of The Neuro's Journey. So Steve, welcome to our podcast. Great to have you on the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Jesse. Appreciate it, man.

So our audience can get to know you a little bit, give us a quick backstory on, on what you do and your business and how did it all get started?

Yeah, it's interesting because the, the Neuros journey kind of started out of me quitting a career, which was finance for, for 30 years, and I ran hedge funds in a variety of forms. Um, the most recent one was, um, actually a lending business. And where I transferred into the Neuro's Journey, which is really talking about the experience of regulating a nervous system that had significant childhood trauma, a lot of addictions and, and whatnot. And, you know, as that regulated, I started to feel a difference in myself as a person, really things that had made me feel kind of like I was broken and damaged because I thought they were innate to me. Started to resolve. And I thought that it might be a nice mix-up of chapters to get out of the finance world and to start talking about that experience, which includes childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, a lot of different, different things that people have experienced. And I started a podcast last November, writing a book, just putting some content out there in written form and just trying to get a dialogue going around these things so we can kind of get out of secrets and shame and more into we're all in this together vibe.

Well, it sounds like you have a journey. Also, there's a why, pretty good why behind what you're building. Yeah, there's maybe some personal reasons there and also just the desire to help other people. Um, Talk to me a little bit about your business. It sounds like you've been in business since November. I don't know what you call it. It's a little bit of a different kind of business. Sounds like you were in the finance lending space for quite a while. Talk to me about that transition a little bit. What made you decide to take the leap?

Yeah, yeah. You know, it was an interesting thing. I'd had a heavy experience with addiction, and my life had been turning around. Significantly for years, but I still had what I considered this addict body, this feelings of sensations that eventually I was numbing out with alcohol or drugs or something. And those things regulated. And I really had this moment of feeling like, oh, it wasn't like that there was something damaged in me all along. What really happened is I had an injury or an adaptation And I'd figured out a way to move myself into a different space there. And it just felt like a completely different world and that I wanted to be part of that conversation. And it started, you know, it's not much of a business yet because I'm not selling anything, but it started very differently because I was very finance-focused. I created strategies, planned and sold them, and I just really started with a desire to be helpful. And I got some interesting people to be willing to be interviewed and talk about their experiences. You know, one thing for your guests that might be interesting is actually childhood trauma is a really strong indicator of business success. There's a private equity firm that I deal with. They do something like 300 pieces of data on whether they're going to invest in a founder-led company. And of all of the pieces of data— product, education, all of it— the number one indicator of success was whether the founder had childhood trauma, which I thought was an incredible stat. Now, I don't think it's a very good indicator of whether you become a founder, but oftentimes I think in the founder world we are using that because we see this as some level of safety or ratification. We're kind of running from, from something. And I'd been doing that for 30 years and had a nervous system regulation. So I decided to start the podcast. I'm writing a book. I have a particular approach to addiction and trauma recovery that is different from, from a lot of them. It's kind of founded on me trying to figure out the lay of the land and use some of my business and finance skills to heal myself. And that's an ongoing process, but there's been a lot of successes along the way. And I'm opening up a dialogue now. I have some coaching clients of people that just know me and have reached out and want that. But that's a direction I'll be going in more as I finish my book, which will be this fall.

Right now you're a solopreneur. You mentioned that you're not doing this, you didn't call it a business, but are you doing this full-time?

Yeah, yeah, it's actually, you know, it's funny because I'm putting more work and effort into this than I was doing in my full-time businesses before. And yeah, I'm doing it full-time. I guess I'm just sort of I'd been such a planner and so focused on the money thing with my other businesses that I wanted to take a different approach to this. I'm also in a better financial position. So, you know, I mean, I like to joke. I mean, I have two ex-wives and a 20-year coke habit. So I still— I do need to make some money here, put a couple of kids through college. But I'm giving it a chance to get out there. And have conversations, put my point of view into the world, and then from what I received from that, orient around turning it into a business as opposed to starting with that as the proposition. It's a very different thing when you're talking about recovery and trauma. It's different than starting a lending business or a finance business.

Talk about the business of content a little bit. I mean, writing a book, I know there's a lot of successful coaches that have gone out, they've written a book, they get on stages. You know, there is definitely a business in, in what you're doing. Where, where are you finding success and getting your message out there? I mean, maybe something about the money right now, but what, what's working for you in, in trying to, to accomplish your goals here?

Yeah, you know, I, I think that of course the podcast is starting to get, get out there a bit. Um, it's really not so much different than the other kind of business. It's putting yourself in spaces where people are talking about the things that you're talking about. Um, I'm affiliated with a really interesting group called The Real Mental Health Foundation, which was started by, uh Taylor Baker, former banker who, you know, had a mental health crisis and now has started, you know, a group where people in finance talk about these things. And it's the kind of thing we all hid. There's many, many thousands of people and they have conferences and walks and whatnot. So I get out with them, chat about my experiences, hear about theirs. But, you know, there's, there's definitely just the personal kind of networking vibe as you slowly build a podcast in a space that's obviously filled with a lot of podcasts. So, you know, they don't, you know, and I don't have a particular name that's bringing millions of people right, right away. So just building it slow and seeing what happens.

Okay. Aussie, AI is dominating conversations still in business. How are you using AI to help you with yours?

You know, it's an interesting thing because I think it's extremely valuable. So I really use it to research my guests, to help me with, you know, question creation. I spend a significant amount of time, a lot more than a lot of podcasters do, on thinking about my guest and generating questions. And so it's very useful for that. On the other hand, I think it's a real negative if you're seen to be putting AI content out, especially if you're somebody like me. I mean, my story is a big part of what I'm doing. I do have it help me write, but always from a position of me starting to do the writing itself and maybe have some suggestions. You know, when you're trying to be authentic and tell your story, AI can be as much of a hindrance as a help. I think people know when you start seeing dashes in the thing and the same, the same sort of lines that seem canned. That's not helpful for what I'm trying, trying to do. So I need to have a balance of looking at it like a tool, but I'm not letting that tool control me. I'm controlling it.

Okay. Yeah. As you're writing, obviously you can be tempted to let it do the work, right? It's, you know, we want AI to allow us to be free to go create, and in some ways it actually takes some of that creativity away from us, you know, in the sense of It's creating our images and writing our thing, you know, and you do miss some of that authenticity when you go straight to AI if you're not careful.

Yeah, I totally agree, and I think that it's just a way to use it. I mean, you know, it's like if you need something banged out fast, it's very helpful. To me, when I get the best results out of it is I have written something, thought about it, put it a certain way, and then I'm using it almost like a thought partner or an assistant who would say, you know, I could say like, well, is there a study that's related to this thing? Oh yeah, I mean, I can bring up 20 of them quickly and I can kind of use that if it works, or, um, you know, different phrasings of things. But yeah, I think it's, um, it's really something you have to be careful with because there's just so much of it coming out there. And then you look like everything else that is, you know, honestly, I don't think it's that creative with the writing. Maybe in other spheres, but when I look at it, I see kind of regurgitated platitudes a lot of times.

Uh, let's look back at your journey a little bit, some of the wins and mistakes that have gotten you to where you are today. Talk to me about some of that.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I would say, of course, that, um, I was fortunate to be, um, pretty talented at managing money, start my own fund, and by the time I was 30, I was managing hundreds of millions and making a significant amount of money. And, and, you know, I, I guess mistake— I don't really look at it like that, but this is what happened to me— is You know, I had significant mental health issues that were going on behind the scenes, and I used a lot of addiction and a lot of things that are not helpful to sort of mask my feelings. And it really undermined an opportunity for me that I had such a good start. I sort of kept basically building businesses to a certain level. And then when they were there and I was quote unquote safe in my mind, I kind of relaxed into addiction or other things. And then the fear would come up and engage my nervous system, which was very powerful, and I'd build it back up. And so I think that, you know, for me, had I really wanted to leverage my business success, I would have spent a little less time on developing new trading strategies and more time figuring out what was going on inside me.

Now, entrepreneurship can be lonely. I mean, a lot of— especially in the starting phases where maybe it's just you. What, what advice do you give to entrepreneurs kind of in that stage where maybe they do kind of get lonely, or they or they kind of crash because they're so overwhelmed by what's going on?

Yeah, it's a difficult thing, you know, and I'm not sure if this is just for the straight-up beginning entrepreneur, but as I got a little more established, I joined a group called EO, and they work with entrepreneurs. I haven't been in it for a while. I think you had to have a million dollars of revenue. But it was kind of not huge companies and a place for the founders of those companies to meet with other people and talk about things. They're a very good program. But I would mostly say, I think that in this world, get out and meet some humans in real life, find the networking events, like get off the screens, talk to people, get used to doing that. And those are the connections when people can really feel you that they can go in a lot of different ways and be willing to express your own vulnerabilities about what's going on. Like, I don't care if the solo entrepreneur is showing you that everything is great with them. It is not. I think this is not the nature of that thing. And by having a little courage to be like, yeah, I mean, I'm having these wins. I'm also struggling really here and it's impacting this and that. That's how you develop a real relationship. And then from there, who knows what, what is going to happen? But I think having the courage to show yourself a little and to realize that we're all on this journey together as humans and as entrepreneurs, and that by being authentic, just like I was saying with the AI, you're going to get a lot more back. Than by sort of pretending that everything is okay because you think that's what people want to hear.

What great advice. I know I've benefited from networking events as well and kind of rubbing shoulders with like-minded people. And, you know, we're all just trying to do our best. And you're right, we often hide. We want to put on a face, right? We want to say everything's good. And, you know, I, and I've had friends, you know, kind of go the opposite direction where they end up taking their lives or, or other kinds of things. Cuz they hide that, right? They hide the, the, the pain and the struggle and the reality of, of the situation they're in. And I think as entrepreneurs, we sometimes get a little prideful, right? Mm-hmm. You know, we wanna show, we're always selling, right? So we're selling ourselves and everything's great when in reality there could be something behind the scenes that, that isn't, right? I mean, you talked about addiction, but, you know, there's finance problems and marriage problems and all sorts of other things that often come into our lives, right?

Yeah, I mean, I love that phrasing that you said, the situation we're in. I mean, I think that's just the human situation, right? I mean, we all, no matter what, you know, one thing, because I've been open about my experiences and some of them have been pretty difficult, a lot of people will open up to me and talk to me, and everybody has a story. And, you know, it might not be as dramatic as some of mine, but the reality is, is it's affecting them. And it'll be a better world and a better place for you to just have the honest conversations. Then you're really meeting the person, right? Like, if my representative is meeting your representative, like, we haven't really met. We've just sort of created these images that are talking to to each other. And I think the magic happens when the real people meet.

Let's talk about the future a little bit. What are you most excited about as you go out and tell your story and writing your book? What excites you about the future?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I have a real connection just because of my personal experience. I mean, what I can really talk to to is people who have been sort of, you know, I like to say functional but not free. Like, from the outside, things looked amazing in my life when I was young. I was doing the Instagram life before it was— there was Instagram. I was living all over the world and businesses and whatnot, and addiction was taking a toll. And, um, I'm interested to work with people in that in that sort of arena and plate because I understand it. And really just to be like, you know, there's nothing really wrong with what is happening now. You're using it to solve a particular problem. There might be other ways to go about it if you want to, you know, like, like I think there's a lot of shame in a lot of the things that happen. And I don't think that there is much shame in using a substance that you think is going to soothe you because you've had difficult experiences in life. And then at some point you realize, well, that's not the best approach. And there are ways to just like work with your nervous system. I mean, what I would say, you know, I don't buy into the AA model, like I'm powerless and all that. I never felt that, you know. And what I learned over time was just my nervous system was stuck in fight or flight. And, you know, a good analogy for that is if your house burned down and it rewired itself so your smoke alarms were almost always on. Well, um, you'd unlikely die of a fire in that house, but it would, it would kind of suck to live in it. And the intent of those alarms are to get you to escape. And the overwhelming majority of people that have heavy addictions have trauma. And if they worked with their nervous system and not even worry about the substance at first, they would start to realize that they just stop reaching for it because they don't— they no longer need to soothe that thing. And so, um, I'm excited to, you know, develop my program more fully and work with that crew of people because I have that experience.

Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining us today on the Achieve Podcast. It's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit, and thank you for sharing your story. I know a lot of business owners, right, we, we want to hide those things, but I completely agree, right? If we can talk about and be open, be authentic with ourselves, we're going to go further. For those listening, if you want to learn more about what Steve is doing, I invite you to visit theneurosjourney.com. The Neuro's Journey is Steve's company. He has a podcast as well. Go listen to his podcast. And, uh, that'll wrap up today's episode of the Achieve Podcast. A big thank you to our sponsor Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executives for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, follow the show, share it with another entrepreneur who also find value in it. And again, thanks for listening. Steve, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.

Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on.

Okay, thank you everyone. We'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.