Permission with Dr. Sherry Walling

Continuing the founders in nature series, a series about the value of being in the outdoors, Sherry interviews Mendel Kurland. Mendel started the group: Hiking with Geeks, and he shares his inspiration for the groups creation.

Adventures with Geeks

Sherry interviews Chris Badgett of LifterLMS about the value of nature for entrepreneurs.  He shares how he has integrated nature into his life and how it supports his success as an entrepreneur.

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Sherry and Rob talk about the benefits of spending one on one time with your children. How mixing up typical family interactions can allow for more in depth conversations with less distractions.

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How do you help someone who is struggling with depression, burnout, loss or anxiety? It isn’t always easy to know how to help, especially if you’re not a trained professional. In this episode, Sherry talks with Boston-area founder, Dale Bertrand, about how to help friends and fellow-founders who are struggling.

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together

Sherry and Rob talk about mental illness. Sherry defines the basics of what mental illness actually is using the 3 D’s (dysfunction,deviant, distress). They discuss how in the short term it can be founder of everyone’s founder experience at some point in time.

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The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together: How to Run Your Business Without Letting it Run You

Sherry interviews Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz, and SparkToro about the mental struggles of running a business. He talks about the importance of de-stigmatizing depression among the founder community and his own struggle to fight his way back after a severe bought with depression.

Rand’s book Lost and Founder pairs wonderfully with the Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together.

Sherry interviews Kim Witczak about the loss of her husband Woody. He was in the early stages of a startup and began to experience trouble sleeping. The story unfolded in the worst possible way. Kim talks about what she wished she had known about the mental health challenges common to those in the early phase of a start-up.

Kim Witczak is a leading national drug safety advocate and speaker with over 25 years professional experience in advertising and marketing communications. She became involved in pharmaceutical drug safety issues after the death of her husband. Kim was appointed Consumer Representative on the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drug Advisory Committee in 2016 and is on the Board of Directors of National Physicians Alliance.  She is an active member of the Consumers Union Safe Patient Project and Lown Institute Community Engagement and Behavior Health council and as well as a part of the DC-based Patient, Consumer, and Public Health Coalition making sure the voice of non-conflicted patients and consumers is represented in healthcare/FDA related legislative issues.

Woody Matters

Sherry announces the release of the ZenFounder Book, The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together: How to Run Your Business Without Letting It Run You. Thank you for the support and look forward to the feedback.

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ZenFounder Book

Inspired by his blog post about depression, Sherry interviews Zach Holman about life as a founder struggling with mental illness. They talk about what depression felt like and how he finally recognized the severity of his situation. Zach also shares about what has helped him recover.

ZachHolman.com

Episode Transcript

Sherry:

Woo-hoo, next Wednesday is the big day. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Together. How to Run Your Business Without Letting it Run You is coming out on the 21st, next Wednesday. So Zen Founder listeners, please, please, if you go and buy the book, it would be fantastic if you would leave a review on Amazon. We are wanting to put this book in as many hands as possible because we are really hopeful that it’s helpful. We’ve put together some of our most helpful tips and tried and true strategies to mitigate some of the emotional challenge that goes along with being a founder. And we’ve tried to package that all in a book that’s easy to read and easy to use.

 

Today’s episode is an interview that I did a while back with Zach Holman. He is a solo founder and previously worked at GitHub, so he has had quite a life in the tech world. Last October, he wrote a blog on his website, ZachHolman.com, called The Depression Thing. And I came across it and found it to be one of the better descriptions of the depression experience that I have read online. And I was really glad that he took the time to talk to me about it.

 

And stories like Zach’s are the why behind why we do what we do at Zen Founder. We want to normalize conversations about mental illness. We want to let founders know that it is totally normal to struggle. That’s typical. And that there are lots of things that can be done to help. So the podcast, the book, my consulting work, all of that is designed to let founders know that there are resources and support available for the emotional and mental ups and downs that inherently go along with the challenge of starting and running a business.

 

I hope Zach’s story gives you an opportunity for commiseration, but also some ideas about how you can keep your own mental game song. If you like what we’re doing or you have suggestions for episodes or topics you’d like us to tackle, then feel free to be in touch. You can reach out to me, [email protected]. That’s Sherry like the wine. S-H-E-R-R-Y. Thanks so much for listening.

Sherry:

Well thanks, Zach, for taking the time to talk with me today. I came across your recent post about depression I think while I was on vacation in Mexico. And it was just one of those things that I stopped what I was doing and read it, and read it again, and read it really carefully. Because it was such a great description of the play-by-play of how you A) had to figure out what was happening to you, and gave it a label, and then tried to figure out what to do about it.

 

So I think that kind of candor is pretty rare in the tech world, and I really appreciate you being willing to put it out there, because we know that a lot of people who are entrepreneurs or people in the tech world are experiencing it, but not a lot of folk are talking about it.

Zach:

Thanks, and thanks for having me on. Pretty excited to talk about this, ironically enough, I guess. If you can be excited about talking about depression.

Sherry:

I think you can, because it’s important. It’s mea

Sherry talks about the challenge of maintaining a healthy, happy sexual connection in the midst of the founder life. It is easier said than done. Much of sex is about psychology–the activities of your brain rather than the action in your pants. Sherry describes some recent science about the dual control model of sexual response. She also gives listeners suggestions and tools to help have important conversations about what is happening in the bedroom.

In today’s episode: Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, PhD

Episode Transcript

Sherry Walling:

Hey, guys, it’s Sherry here. I’m going solo this week. Rob is in San Francisco at Sasser, so I am holding down the fort at home and on the podcast. One of the things that I’d like to talk about this week, I guess somewhat ironically because my husband’s out of town, is to talk a little bit about sex and the role that it plays, the important role that it plays in the life of a couple. I’d like to talk about some of the challenges that I’ve talked about with founders and their significant others, specifically related to this part of their life.

 

This is not, by any means, a graphic conversation, but it is an adult conversation so if you’re listening with munchkins or kiddos in the car or around you, you might wanna table this for a time when you can think grown up thoughts. Before we get started, a couple of announcements. The book launch is scheduled for February 21, so, those of you who are on the prelaunch list, you’re gonna get a series of emails reminding you about that date, inviting you to some early discounted prices and letting you know all about our new book, the Entrepreneurs Guide to Keeping your Bleep Together: How to Run your Business Without Letting it Run You.

 

So if you are interested in what’s happening with the book, or thinking about picking up a copy, definitely hop over to ZenFounder.com and get on the mailing list so you can get some of the perks and discounts and stuff that will go along with our virtual launch party. I also wanted to let folks know that I will be speaking at Word Camp Miami, in Miami, in the middle of March. March 16 to 18. I’ll be part of a business track on Sunday morning that looks like it’s going to be really fantastic, so if you are in the Miami are or are a WordPress fan, it would be fun to see you there. Similarly, I will be in Sacramento on April 21 for the Elevate Leaders conference. This is a conference that’s all about mental health and well being for entrepreneurs and founders for really business leaders of all kinds. If you are interested in attending that event, or if you are in the Sacramento area, email me and I have some generous discount codes. Get in touch with me, [email protected] and I will be happy to pass those along to you, Zen Founder listeners.

Sherry Walling:

Okay, so, Valentine’s day is just around the corner and whether or not this is an important romantic event in your particular couple hood, it seems like a good time to talk about some relationship related topics. Last week, Rob and I talked about the essential question of relationships, “Will you be there when I need you?” We talked a little bit about attachment and interdependence and some of the things that both studies and relationship experience show can be absolutely essential in making sure you maintain a strong connection. So, if you missed that one, go back, listen to it.

 

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