The Social Health Revolution w/Ondra Němčík

Ondra, a mindset coach and best-selling author, shares his powerful journey from severe social anxiety and depression to building a successful career helping others transform their mindset and social health. From his darkest moments contemplating suicide to discovering personal development through a Google search for "how to be happy," his story demonstrates how intentional community and inner work can change everything.

• Meditation as a consistent practice, from 2-minute sessions to 30-minute deep work
• The entrepreneurial journey described as "wild loops" of extreme highs and lows
• How videos of random acts of kindness became a beacon of light during suicidal thoughts
• Managing stress through present-moment awareness rather than past/future thinking
• Why strong relationships contribute significantly to personal and professional success
• The video game approach to overcoming social anxiety by leveling up gradually
• Shifting from exchanging time for money to exchanging value for money
• Taking care of your mental health first before trying to solve others' problems

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and let us know how it's going. I'd love to see a couple five stars fly up.

https://mindforcepodcast.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:50 Welcome to Mindforce
• 1:09 Meeting Ondra: Mindset Coach and Author
• 1:42 Meditation Journey and Daily Practices
• 4:34 Wild Entrepreneurial Loops
• 6:30 From Suicidal Thoughts to Self-Help
• 15:24 Managing Stress Through Presence
• 25:32 Social Health and Building Relationships
• 31:14 Entrepreneurial Mindset Shifts
• 43:36 Social Health Checklist for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hi everyone. I'm Nate Shearer, your host, and this is Mindforce, the podcast. That's all about love, life and learning. Here, your mind matters. Today we'll be talking about mental health, social health and entrepreneurship. Let's start with a quick introduction. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, what do you do and why are you here today?

Speaker 2: 0:42

Hello, thank you for having me, Nate. What do you do and why are you here today? Hello, thank you for having me, nate. I am, my name is Ondra. I am from the Czech Republic originally, but now I've been to about 20 countries as a digital nomad. I am a mindset coach, a speaker, a community leader and also a best-selling author nowadays, and I love talking about entrepreneurship and social health. I used to have very bad social anxiety and kind of went on a big journey to overcome it, and that's why I speak about it now.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Awesome. Okay, we'll start with the warmup. First question what's something you do daily that helps keep you grounded?

Speaker 2: 1:15

Daily I absolutely daily these days meditate, and usually a few times a day. Actually. It can be anywhere from two minute meditation to 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but definitely late days.

Speaker 1: 1:26

It's interesting. It's come up on the show quite a bit. Can you walk us through how you went from not meditating to your initial steps into meditating?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Absolutely. I think meditation is such a broad concept these days and it's very popular. There's so many different ways and kinds as well. For me, the meditation journey started around when I was 13, 14 years old, and it was the times when I started getting into personal development and started being like how can I deal with my emotions and anxiety better? And I didn't really feel any different.

Speaker 2: 2:00

I didn't feel any effects of meditation in the beginning, but then as I stayed more consistent and I tried different ways, I tried just normal mindfulness and then just focusing on my breath, and then eventually I settled on guided meditations and I tried different types of guided meditations and that started helping me a little bit more. And then I transitioned into inner body meditations from Concept of the Power of now by eckhart tolle, and so that kind of meditation made the most impact on me. So it was like very slow burn. The beginning was very tough and I started and I quit and I gave up and then I started again. I didn't stay consistent. There was like back and forth, back and forth. But now, because it's been more than a decade since I, like, did my first ever meditation, I'm much more consistent and I feel the effects much more.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Yeah, that makes sense. It's part of your routine. Now, it's just second nature. Do you do any type of journaling or writing of any kind?

Speaker 2: 2:56

Yes, absolutely Journaling, not every day these days. So it's like the way I look at it. In the beginning, when I was really fighting with my anxiety and fighting with my depression, I felt like I needed to go more all in into managing my mindset, into maintaining my mindset, and so I did all of these. I did journaling, I did meditation. I was running all the time my mind that it automatically kind of focuses on the positives and focuses on solutions and what I'm grateful for and things, what I'm proud of. So I have. I don't have to have this, I don't have to be as brutal with it, but I just do more of a maintain. I just do maintain practices. Every few days. I journal about what I'm grateful for, journal about what I'm proud of, I refocus on solutions and things like that and my mind kind of works.

Speaker 1: 3:45

It's, it's magic already that's interesting, yeah, very reoccurring. Uh, writing, journaling and meditation are definitely up there on themes that come through from the different guests and whatnot. A next question if you could describe your entrepreneurial journey in one word, wild and why it's been.

Speaker 2: 4:07

I've been through many cycles, let's say, or, or loops where it starts to go really well, it's like, oh my god, this is so amazing, I love this. Or if everything's going to work out and something just happens, like you start going down, like no, and you kind of watch it burn and you watch those stuff slow down, and then you go through the bottom of the loop, like should I even you know try again? Like should I even continue? Like what's even the point? Maybe I should just go back to a job. You know like this is never gonna work. And you come out of of it and you're like, oh my god, this is amazing, again, right, and you go through the loop.

Speaker 2: 4:37

And I've been. I've been in business for about five years now and two or two and a half of those years have been full time. So I've been through many of those loops and every single loop just gets wild, both on the top of like getting flown out to different countries to be to go on a business meeting and getting sponsored, and and then, oh my god, all of my clients are like kind of leaving and you know they can't pay, so how am I going to pay my bills and then. So I've been through very high highs and very low lows as well what do you think that that cycle or that loop has taught you?

Speaker 1: 5:09

what's the the big lesson if someone's in one of those different phases?

Speaker 2: 5:13

I'm, always changes and the only thing that stays the same is, like your internal space, and that's why meditation, I think, is such a reoccurring thing as well for you and other guests, because everything else outside is unstable and uncertain and it will always change. But maintaining your own inner space, your own inner peace and your stability and certainty within through journaling, through meditation, through these mindful practices, that's how you can stay sane and make sure that you keep going through the loops. And everything outside might be happening, but internally you're like, ok, this will pass, I'll make it through and it will be amazing again.

Speaker 1: 5:52

Yeah, that's a good reminder. Got to have some type of solid rocks, a little bit of foundation inside yourself, because outside, like you said, everything is just going to keep on moving, keep on changing. So you got to have something at your core. And the last question, the warmup what's a social interaction or connection that has had a lasting impact on you?

Speaker 2: 6:10

My first thought is like oh my God, which one do I pick?

Speaker 2: 6:15

There have been many that made a big lasting impact In terms of personally, I think the biggest one, right in the very almost the beginning of my life, was while I was still really dealing with bad depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts as well, I found a friend who from the outside it seemed like she had an amazing life and she was like the popular girl in school and everybody loved her and all of this. And behind closed doors she got really beaten up and abused by her dad and because I was getting bullied and I was kind of hiding that right, I was like pretending everything is okay from the outside but in real life I was suffering. It was similar for her, and when we became friends and we became more comfortable with each other, we started sharing and kind of consolidated in each other in a way and we helped each other make that suffering easier, and so that was definitely a big one. That probably changed the the course of my life, hey, in a very positive way yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I think that's a really good point behind the show and thing that I try to like push on. Like these conversations I get asked like you know, what do you think the point of the show is? Or you know, why did you start the show and different things like that. And my thought is, stories like stories connect us, and so I think a lot of times that's what ends up happening. You have something that happens to you and you think it's difficult and, for whatever reason, we kind of go inward and we isolate and we think, oh, I'm the only one that's has ever happened to. You're definitely not the only person. There's hardly anything in this world that no one else has ever experienced before.

Speaker 1: 7:52

And so, hopefully, you know the stories we share, the you know the fun or the jokes or the laughs or whatever it is like resonates with somebody and like, hey, I can get through it or someone else is going through it and you know I can, I can push on, and so, yeah, I think that's awesome that you said that. Like we all try to hide it and kind of push it down and push it down deep, unfortunately, but we've all had bad days and even if it's not the same. I think it's another thing. There's so many parallels where it's like, ok, I haven't been through that exact thing, but it doesn't mean I can't sit with you and you know, empathize and connect and be like, hey, we can get through this, even though it's different. You don't want to say like you've been through everything and I know how to fix it, but being able to sit in the space with somebody is super important. Well, before we start on the three main pillars, I wanted to know if you had a question for me.

Speaker 2: 8:33

I think my question would be what is a relation? I'll use the same question. It's a great question what is a relationship or interaction that made a lasting impact on you?

Speaker 1: 8:43

Oh lasting impact. I think I would say it was with my mom, and I don't know if you can do that because I'm sure that's probably a cop out, but I just feel like the relationship and the dynamic for my mom and me is just super unique. My dad was Evan, went through a bunch of different I don't know. He had a bunch of troubles and whatnot, so he'd punch holes in walls and, you know, had a lot of different things going on. So me and her, the way that we would navigate life and how it was kind of us against the world. We lived in small apartments with my grandparents and hand me down clothes and and just that relationship. It's just so hard to show someone else. So I have another two siblings after that and they don't have that same kind of connection that we had because it was just me and her, and so it's always one of those things that's been really difficult for me to demonstrate or to show, like how strong and how different it is. It's not that our relationship is better than theirs or whatever, like that's not the intent. It's just different when it's you and you know another person trying to just get through it. Like I think of we were kind of joking the other day about like chores in the family here. You know, like we pay the kids, you know, six $7 for their chores and I remember, you know, going through and cleaning up the house and helping out with stuff because we had to. It was either she picked it up or I picked it up, like there is no other option there's. I'm not going to ask for money, I'm not gonna, you know, want more. And so I remember going to stores and things like that and I'm sure I would ask for things from time to time, but I knew we just didn't have much. So it's just interesting how the dynamic is so much different in that relationship space when it's a different dynamic. So I say, yeah, definitely lasting. It's kind of guided my life and changed things.

Speaker 1: 10:19

I kind of from the very beginning, like one story I don't think I've actually shared it, which is kind of odd but when I got my tonsils out as a kid, I lived in this one, you know, this little one bedroom apartment and all I could do was watch cartoons, because you know you're all on drugs and your throat hurts and all you can do is really eat popsicles. And we only had one TV, one small TV that was on the opposite thing, opposite, you know, floor of the apartment from the bedroom. So I remember my mom you know she's pretty tiny, she's trying to drag this giant mattress down in front of the TV so I could watch TV, eat popsicles and veg out. And just her struggling and manhandling this, this mattress, to get it in appropriate place for me to recover, and whatnot, was just one of those things that I I remember forever. Yeah, that's what I would say, me and my mom against the world. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 11:07

Yeah, thanks for sharing.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Awesome, yeah yeah. Your first main pillar is mental health. So how has mental health influenced your journey as an entrepreneur Massively?

Speaker 2: 11:18

from both like balancing my own mental health, but also like the reason why I started all of my business journeys was because of mental health and helping other people with mental health. So, as I mentioned before, I had severe social anxiety and depression myself and got to the point where I almost jumped in front of a train to end it all, and the friendship that I mentioned earlier was a big part of me coming out of it. And then another big part was I Googled how to be happy and I got introduced into personal development and learning psychology by myself when I was still a very young kid, at 13. And the reason why I had to do that was because, being from a small town in the Czech Republic, the mindset about mental health was like that doesn't exist. Don't be a little bitch, just get over it, you know.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Whatever so I didn't yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:04

So I didn't have the opportunity to go to any doctors or therapy or use any medication, even though in my city there were psychologists and psychiatrists. But my family was just like, no, that doesn't exist, you don't need any of that. So I had to go on this big journey to do it myself. And then I just studied really hard and started changing my habits and doing things like journaling and trying to reprogram my brain and overcome bullying and do all that. And then eventually, a few years in maybe about five, six years in I just one day kind of woke up and I was like remembering my life before.

Speaker 2: 12:36

But I discovered personal development and after and I'm like, wow, I'm not depressed anymore, I don't absolutely hate myself, I don't have anxiety attacks anymore, like, and I'm not scared of people so much, I'm talking to strangers on buses, I have good friends, I'm doing very well in school, I was like, wow, like this personal development thing, like self-help, like it really absolutely changed my life. So I want to start sharing it and I want to help others because I see so many people still struggling, you know, specifically with social anxiety. That's really where I started and, yeah, it was a the reason why I became an entrepreneur to help others because I see so many people still struggling, you know, specifically with social anxiety. That's really where I started and, yeah, it was the reason why I became an entrepreneur to help other people with mental health.

Speaker 1: 13:10

That's awesome. So I hate to bring up a dark moment, but I want to have like real conversations here and try and keep it as real as possible. I think sometimes things get kind of sugarcoated along the way. So when you were thinking about you know, know, throwing yourself in front of a train, like can you kind of walk us through the thoughts of that darkest moment, like what's kind of going through? There's just no hope, and can you kind of walk us through what you felt at that moment?

Speaker 2: 13:35

yeah it there was. It seemed like no hope, no way out of it. It seemed like everything and everybody is just evil and that the world is just meant like the only thing that I can ever experience in in the world is suffering and pain and struggle. And it became, yeah, like really really hopeless and meaningless.

Speaker 2: 13:55

I think that was the biggest thing of feeling like there's absolutely no point except just hating myself and hating my life. I I really, I guess a part of me really directed towards me because I felt like maybe I could stand up for myself a little bit more, maybe I could say something or maybe I could fight back or maybe I could do something different, but I just couldn't. I couldn't get myself to do that and my body was reacting in a very physical way and with anxiety as well, and I would cry almost every night, cry myself to sleep of like I just don't want to wake up, I don't want to go to school anymore, I don't want to talk to my parents, I don't want to see anybody and, um, I think the meaninglessness of it just felt the worst and like it's never going to change yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 14:42

So someone that's in that dark moment, they they're isolating, they're spiraling, they feel like there is nothing. What was that moment? Where was it a light bulb, or what was that transition? Like, hey, I got a, you said the self-help, but can you walk us through that moment where it's like I got to, got to get help, I got to fix this, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:08

I think it was after like a day of bullying. When I came home I was just like this fucking, what an awful day again. I just don't want to do this anymore. And a part of me, like I knew that I don't really want to die. I don't. I know, I really don't. I don't really want to kill myself. And maybe that was because, you know, part of me was like this you know, my family is here, maybe there's some potential and some parts of life I enjoy. But it's just like there's this overwhelming pain. And another part of me was like what's the point? But then there was a small part of me like I know, I don't really want to do that. And I was also scared. I was like scared of the pain of actually jumping in front of a train and something inside me was just like okay, well, I have to do something about this. Like if I'm not going to do anything, nothing's going to change.

Speaker 2: 15:49

I wish I could tell you, maybe more specifically, but I remember two things that really impacted me. One of them is I was so desperate and I Googled how to be happy, and then another thing that happened was that I discovered videos of random acts of kindness, and the videos were literally called restoring hope in humanity, which was what I needed, and I don't remember specifically which one came first if I first discovered the videos, kind of randomly, or if I Googled first and then that's what popped up as well, but really it was just montages of people, you know, doing random acts of kindness, like helping somebody across the street, or even something big like running into a building that's on fire to save dog. And the first time I watched those videos I just I cried my eyes out for hours, just watching hours and hours of the content, and that became like my beacon of light, because it felt all like hopeless and meaningless, like everything and everybody is evil, just out to get me out, to hurt me. And then I saw these people who were doing these selfless, kind, random acts and I thought, well, maybe there are amazing people out there, maybe there is a different side to life and humanity, and I just need to go out and find them and even become one of them. So then that's my world. I want to hang out with these people, so I've got to be one of them.

Speaker 2: 17:03

And so that became my, my world, like I want to hang out with these people, so I want to be. I got to be one of them and so that became my beacon of light in a way that helped me push through, because I had like, okay, well, there's, I'm maybe stuck here in the darkness, but somewhere out here there's amazing people, there's amazing communities and all this. So that gave me the hope. And then the Google search and the personal development gave me, like, the strategies and the techniques of meditation and journaling and running in the mornings and all that to climb out of that. So it was the combination of the two really yeah, that's, that's perfect.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Earlier I wanted to mention, like one of my favorite phrases is you never know what someone's going through or what, whatever battles people are going through, and so I think that's perfect, because you had mentioned, you know your friend getting abused and then the bullying that you were trying to hide and, and so I think that really rolls into like the show here and you know things like that, just taking care of each other. It's always, or not always, but I feel like a lot of times it's the smaller things. I mean opening the door and smiling and these things that you're talking about. You know helping each other.

Speaker 1: 17:59

I think that's how we get through this crazy thing called life. I mean, there's no owner's manual, there's no directions, like we just try our best and if we're going to help each other along the way, it's just going to make it better for ourselves, and a lot of times you feel good when you do it, so I mean it's a win-win. I don't know why there isn't more kindness and, you know, more joy of helping each other. Next question misconceptions or myths people have about mental health in high achieving spaces like entrepreneurship. What are misconceptions?

Speaker 2: 18:28

about mental health. I think a part of it might be still what my parents told me like it doesn't matter, it doesn't exist, just get over it. No, just kind of sweep it under the rug, work over it more, hide your emotions. You don't have to deal with that, you just have to work, work, work. Whereas if you create more of a balance with your emotional control, you will be more productive and more effective in work and the way you communicate and your output and all that. So I think that might be a big misconception that it doesn't impact the performance. Another misconception might be is that when somebody's doing really well success wise, like from the outside, that means that they're just doing well mentally as well. We find out more and more that that's not reality. There might be people who might have it all from the outside the money, the house, the success, the business, the girls or the amazing wife and all this but then internally they're still suffering.

Speaker 1: 19:28

So that might be a big misconception as well. The definition of success is a very difficult thing. I think the way that the outward world defines it is probably not as accurate. I feel like the people that have the cars and the money are usually the ones having the most problems yeah, what do you think, what do you see as misconceptions about mental health?

Speaker 1: 19:46

that's what I was gonna say. In that high achieving space, like I know in my current role, like I'm in a leadership role, and so it's one thing that's always kind of bugged me where it's like when you're in the leadership role, like everything's figured out and you know. It's interesting how, when you're in different levels of you know the business or organization, like usually the lower levels, which I hate to use like hierarchical because I think we're, you know, all important and things like that. So I don't really mean it up and down necessarily, but in the lower sections for lack of a better term it's like you know how are you guys doing and getting checked on. It seems like the higher you get, it's like no one ever checks. You're the boss, you're the leader, like you got it all squared away and it's like you know we're all right, like we all got wives and kids that you know have troubles and things are going on, or you know sickness, or you know there's so many different things that are going on in the world. There's so much good, like you said, in the world, but there's also still all the things we have to push through and struggles Always just kind of a bizarre thing to me where it's like if you are in a different position or if you're having success, you know, whatever that may be, it's like oh, got it all figured out.

Speaker 1: 20:50

I try to do that in my sections, like after a few months I try to go through like I lost my dad and my grandparents and I co-parent and I went through a divorce and I went through these things, you know, and I'm like I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer like bring down the moon. So I usually don't do it right off the bat because I don't want to freak anybody out. But you know, three or four months into having a section and whatnot, I kind of go through that and I hope it's like bridging the gap, because a lot of times we hear at work like open door policy, like you can come in and talk to me whenever you want, but I a lot of times I've never felt like I could not because the physical door wasn't open. The physical door was open but I wasn't sure like this person seemed like they did have it squared away or I didn't know enough about them to. I'm not going to tell you my messiness if I don't know enough about you or have that connection.

Speaker 1: 21:35

So I try to put out some of those things like hey, I've been through some stuff, and again I'm not saying like I've been through your thing so I'll solve it and I'll fix it. I'm just saying I've been through some stuff. It might be a parallel, but like I'll listen and we'll figure out like how to move forward. Or maybe it's just to vent and get some words out and then we need to go on our way and maybe never talk about it again. I don't know which direction it's going to go, but I will definitely sit in the space with you and listen.

Speaker 1: 21:58

But I think that's probably the biggest thing. Like success, leadership, you know these different things. It's like, oh, I got it all figured out, when that is definitely not the case. I was wondering from you know, being your own boss and you're running the company and you're moving around, you'd mention, like how do you manage stress and avoid burnout? You don't have, I'm assuming, set hours and you're the one kind of making sure things happen. So how do you manage stress and avoid burnout while you're building and working through that business?

Speaker 2: 22:23

Yeah, Great question Again. Funny enough, meditation becomes a big part of it, and meditation in, I guess, two specific ways. First is like an actual sit down meditation, like what you hear, what you imagine that, like an actual sit down meditation, like what you hear, what you imagine that you, when you hear meditation, right, like most people just probably think about okay, let me sit down cross leg like, and like, just like meditate, right. I would also say meditation throughout the day, which to me means being present, right, so living, trying to live in the moment. Because a lot of the stress mostly comes from your mind, being stuck in the past or in the future, right, so we're overthinking what might happen or what is going to happen in the future, or we're reminiscing about what happened in the past and we start to get stuck in regret and all of this, oh my God, I should have done this or should have done that, right. And that's what creates more of the pressure, whereas if you just focus on being present in the moment, that stress just goes away. And then people sometimes say feel your emotions, right, like, don't try and push your emotions away, but feel your emotions, and to that I never really understood that and then, finally, it clicked for me and I created a little bit of a I guess nuance Instead of feeling my emotions, I say feel the sensations.

Speaker 2: 23:42

Right, so your emotion is made up of physical sensations, right? So I was like what do you mean? I'm feeling really stressed, I'm feeling the stress. What do you mean? Feel the stress? Right, like I'm already feeling it. What else do you want me to do?

Speaker 2: 23:49

Whereas when I made the distinction about feeling the sensations, I was like, well, what's the sensation? My heart is beating really fast, okay, that's, I can feel that directly. My hands are jittery, right. My arms may be like a little bit shaky, right, I feel like pressure in my shoulders, for example, right.

Speaker 2: 24:05

And I found that when I do that, when I feel the sensations of what's creating that emotion, I get more present with it and it just starts to dissipate and that pressure, that stress goes away. And again, that ties both into practicing that as a sit-down meditation once a day, or once every two days or something like that, and then just doing this throughout your day, like, as an example, I might sit down to my computer, I might look at my to-do list and I'm like, oh my God, I have like 10 things to do. I get overwhelming, I get stressed about should I do this one first, or should I do that one first? Or if I do this one first, then it's going to be this hard. And if I do that one first, oh right. And instead of just looking at the to-do list and trying to force myself to work right away, in that moment I'm just going to get present, take a few deep breaths, maybe connect with with my heart a little bit and then start working from that space, and it's infinitely easier.

Speaker 1: 25:00

Yeah, I think that's good. I think I've gotten hung up on that. I'm sure other people have too. On meditation, you're like oh, I got to cross my legs, I got to sit in this spot, I need to light an incense and I got to make sure I'm playing the right music and it's got to sound like a spa in here or something, and I think it's a really good reminder. I'm glad you brought that up. Like it looks different. What works for you work through it. You know if it's one minute or five minutes or 30 minutes, or you know you process the things that you need to process and you process it in the way you need to. But I think the term is, you know, kind of like oh, it's just hippie stuff, it's just kind of crazy, it's like it is whatever it needs to be for you, and so it can look in a lot of different ways. I like that. Your next pillar is social health. So how do strong relationships contribute to personal and professional success?

Speaker 2: 25:44

Yeah, Social health is one of my favorite topics these days and something that I'm very excited about exploring more deeply as well this year. And it ties back into you know, when I started thinking about this. It ties back into my first real friendship, which is I already mentioned her a few times like the friendship where I didn't have to pretend anymore, like where I could actually just share and be myself and we didn't really have a device to give each other right, but just having that space where I didn't have to pretend anymore and I could be myself. And it sounds like buzzwords, but when you're really experienced it's like, wow, okay, this is what people mean. This is why people say these buzzwords. It's different to hear it and then to actually live it. And then it makes everything else so much easier and lighter and better.

Speaker 2: 26:34

And I think we are in the end. We are social creatures, right, and we evolved to be social. And especially these days, and especially in entrepreneurship and when people are getting started as solopreneurs, we isolate and we think we have to manage and handle everything ourselves, and that's what creates so much extra stress and so much extra anxiety and depression and isolation. And so just bring it up, the conversation and the ideas of like, hey, how are your relationships? Do you actually have strong, healthy friendships and are you maintaining the relationship with yourself? I think that's really important to talk about.

Speaker 2: 27:12

And these days, you know, with social media, like people replaced their social habits of just going to chat with a friend with scrolling on their social media, right, and it kind of taps into similar parts of the brain, maybe because you see faces, you see other people doing things, right, so it gives you a little illusion of social interaction, but then in reality it just leaves you more isolated and empty. You know how do you feel when you finish your three hour scrolling session? Shit, right, yeah that's rough so go ahead.

Speaker 2: 27:43

Yeah, so it ties into it and I think having strong relationships in and from the friend, the places and the friends where you can fully be yourself and be authentic, really right, that's what impacts the stress levels and connection and more meaning in life and makes everything easier.

Speaker 1: 28:00

Yeah, I think sometimes we think we need to say the right thing or, you know, sometimes you don't got to say anything at all if you got that right connection. I wanted to know earlier you said you had struggled with networking and things like that and being more isolated and feeling awkward and things like that, and being more isolated and feeling awkward and things like that. So what advice do you have for entrepreneurs that do struggle with networking?

Speaker 2: 28:20

yeah, I like to look at it as a video game. Well, I mean, everything, my, my whole mindset about life is like life is like a video game, but specifically, this can be like a quest or as a video game metaphor. If you're really struggling, you look at it as like in levels. Right, that's where the video game metaphor comes in. So, let's say, your main goal, what you really want to do, is you want to be able to walk into a networking event and hear a speaker and be like really confident, walk up to the speaker hey, I really really loved your speech and this was amazing and connect with them and then shake everybody's hand and reintroduce yourself really confidently. But then the reality is like you can't. You feel like you can't do that because you're really shy and your body starts being really nervous and shaky. Right, your heart beats, your heart beats faster and you just don't. You don't know what to say and things like that, right. Well, so that might be your level 10 where you want to get to, but if you're at level one, where you can't even talk to a normal stranger at a normal like in a coffee shop, then you might want to start there, right.

Speaker 2: 29:16

So for me that journey was like I couldn't basically couldn't speak to anybody, and I started by chatting with people on social media and on apps. I just started texting people and then I got a little bit and I still felt really scared if I was just like, oh my god, like, what if they're gonna hate me? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I ask, ask the wrong question? What if they're going to be annoyed that I'm trying to text them right, like even within that?

Speaker 2: 29:36

So I got over those little fears over there and then, once I got more comfortable, I started sending voice messages. Once I got more comfortable with that, I started doing phone calls and then video calls and then and then I started talking to strangers on buses and then I started joining groups and then I started being on events and then speaking on stages. I saw like you start with something that's a little outside of your comfort zone and you train yourself there, you get more confident, comfortable, you build the skills, you build the confidence and then you level up and then eventually, within a few months and years, you're going to be speaking on the stage delivering a speech and be like the confident person you want it to be.

Speaker 1: 30:11

That's awesome, that's a good one. I'm going to have to remember that, because I think we talk about, you know, short-term goals, long-term goals and one year and five year and things like that, and we all know we need goals, but it sounds kind of boring. But when you put it in levels, I mean that sounds a lot cooler. I think a lot of us gravitate towards game theory and achieving things and having fun along the way, and so I love the idea of going through that.

Speaker 1: 30:34

I like the idea of like stepping up through the levels too, because I think that is another thing we want to do A lot of times. We want to do the big thing first, whatever. That is for some reason, like I want to go right up and talk to the president of the company. It's like are you really? You probably don't want to start there, but I feel like we don't do a very good job of the, the consistency, the small things. Along the way. You got to do it a hundred times before you can do the next thing, and so that leveling concept I think is really good, because you stay consistent and do the small things and then you can kind of get to the next level and then you know consistently do that and then move on.

Speaker 2: 31:09

I think that's really good yeah, I also like the again to like make the metaphor very sticky and specific.

Speaker 2: 31:15

If you start playing a game and you're at level one, you can, you, and you try to beat the boss at level 10, where you're going to get your ass kicked and probably never want to play the game again. Right, because your character, you're not ready for it, you don't have the skills, you don't have the experience, you don't have the equipment or whatever it is that is in that specific game, right, but like you said, in life we just think that we can go from level one to level 10, be really down with it, you know, but it's like no, you actually have to go through levels. And I see that as, like, specifically with overcoming social anxiety, people make that mistake all the time. They're like hey, I want to. I'm really sure I can't speak to anybody, but I'm gonna stop picking up girls on a on a beat and then they go and try to talk to one girl. They get rejected, they burn out, they embarrass themselves really badly and they're like I'm never doing that again. Yeah, you went too far gotta ease into it.

Speaker 1: 32:01

I'm curious with, uh, you talked about, like the different apps and things like that, like what do you do now that you're more secure and things like that? Do you gravitate towards like more video calls, or do you still have a balance of, you know, text and email and how do you kind of balance? Because you had talked about social media and things like that. So I'm curious, like the digital communication, what's the best kind of balance there? At some point you have to send emails because it's faster, but you know what's that balance look like for you it's I'm using all of the different channels and I do.

Speaker 2: 32:34

I do dms, I do texts, I do emails, I do voice messages. Every now and then I'm going to send a video message as well. I do phone calls, I do video calls. Yeah, all of the above it doesn't matter to me. It's more so like what I feel is the most effective tool for that moment. Sometimes, when I'm running around between meetings and events, I'm going to just send a quick voice message. If I'm sitting down at my computer, I'm going to just send a quick voice message. If I'm sitting down at my computer, I'm going to usually text and and um and just chat, and then I do lots and lots of video calls and online meetings on video.

Speaker 1: 33:06

So yeah, that makes sense. I think you already kind of touched on it, but maybe expand a little bit. What do you think the role of community is, and personal and business success?

Speaker 2: 33:15

well, let's start with the personal thing. In the personal it kind of ties back into the social health and if you have a and the quote that we've all heard you become the average of the five or three people you hang out with the most right. So the people that you hang out with, they're going to have a huge influence on you. So if you hang out with really positive people who have healthy habits, who go to, who go running, you're much more likely to become you're probably going to become a runner, right. If you hang out with runners, if you hang out with really positive people who have healthy habits, who go to, who go running, you're much more likely to become you're probably going to become a runner, right, if you hang out with runners. If you hang out with people who watch the news and complain about the economy, you're going to become a person who complains about the economy. So your community and and your community shapes who you are becoming right, especially the people who are closest to your closest community. So you've got to be really careful and you've got to structure it in an intentional way and with business it becomes similar, it becomes similar, but also there's more opportunities, right, like so in business it's all based on relationships. It's all based on who you know and what kind of opportunities you get from collaborating and contributing to other people. So the better community you have, the better network and the better relationships you have, better opportunities you will have, more opportunities you will have, and that's how more business is done.

Speaker 2: 34:30

That's something that I didn't understand as a kid. I thought that go, it's just. You know, I had no idea like what business was and I was watching. I was watching watching Casey Neistat and his vlogs as he was building his businesses and he was like, yeah, today I'll have this meeting and this meeting. He was like going around New York City from meeting to meeting and I remember watching and I was like what the hell is he doing on all these meetings? Like what's happening right, and these days it's funny because my life is like so much about meetings and so much about like event here, a podcast here, a coaching session here, a sales meeting here, a meeting to talk about a festival that we're starting, a meeting to talk about a local business, that we might be starting a meetup here, right, and networking here, and it's all about meetings and so now I'm like understanding it. That's like the community and the relationships that you have will equal the opportunity that you will have.

Speaker 1: 35:20

I find it interesting too, because I know a lot of people are like I hate meetings and we make the joke like hey, this email could have been, or this meeting could have been an email, and things like that. And I think that's true to a certain extent. But on some of the projects where there's a contention or like things are stuck, I've noticed if I pull people together and we have a meeting, there is something about someone sitting across the table from you. They want to help you a little more. They feel like maybe pressure or you know, they feel like they got to come through for you. If it's on the other end of an email like, hey, could you get this back to me? You know, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

Speaker 1: 35:56

There's some type of ownership and responsibility when you're at that thing. So I know you know we joke like we hate meetings. But there is something I think back to, like you said, social creatures, right, like that's how we were built. We were supposed to go and plow the fields and hunt and bring it back for everyone, and so I think that's a yeah, I think that's really important to remember. Like meetings are important, maybe we to remember like meetings are important maybe we do have too many, but they definitely do get things done and the last pillar you have is entrepreneurship. So I'm curious what?

Speaker 2: 36:27

are some of the biggest mindset shifts you've made along the way. A few of the biggest ones was exchanging value to time for time instead of exchanging value for money instead of time for money. So, to give you a little bit of context, I grew up in a working class of factory workers. Basically everybody in my family is used to working in factories steel factories specifically and so my mom would literally tell me the only way that you'll ever make money in this world is by exchanging your time in the factory for getting the paycheck, and maybe the best you can hope for is getting your time to be more valuable and being in an office rather than on the factory floor, right? So it was all about just exchanging time that you put in for the money for the paycheck that you get, whereas entrepreneurs operate in exchanging value for money. Right, and it might take time to create the value. In other instances, it might know that it takes time to create the value.

Speaker 2: 37:23

Once you create a product and then you sell it over and over again, you're not selling the time that you took to create the product, you're selling the value of the product. So that was a big one. That was a big one for me. Another big one for me. Blanking out a little bit, I actually, funny enough, I made a video like the entrepreneur thinking versus, or business thinking versus, employee thinking recently, because I came from being an employee, so this is something that I do think about a lot, but the time is definitely a huge one. I'm trying to get my brain to snap back into remembering what it was.

Speaker 1: 37:58

Oh, it's all good, we can move on. But I do like that though, because I know I've seen bosses get mad if someone leaves like right on the clock and things like that. And it's always something that's always kind of bugged me a little bit, because I've seen someone that comes in, they set their prior for the day and then they work from 730 to 430. They get all the things done and they leave right on the dot because they move through their checklist and they're done. And then I've also seen people that stay until five or six o'clock at night and they walked around most of the day with a coffee cup. It didn't really get much done, but oh, they stayed until six. That's so good, like they didn't do anything.

Speaker 1: 38:32

And so it's weird to me that we had one boss of just kind of sit by the door and like almost physically tap his watch, like oh, you know, watching the clock, like that. I'm like that is bizarre, like why don't you go check and see what the two different people got done? Because there is no correlation. You could be the most efficient or the worst efficient, and the amount of time is not correlated at all. Like I mean, I guess you came in and worked for an hour. Maybe that's like you know too far, but maybe I mean if you get it all done. Another question I had for you is you know, in the terms of success we talked about and well-being, how do you balance ambition and wanting to get things done with your own well-being?

Speaker 2: 39:09

Yeah, I think part of it and this is something I think comes up probably a lot as well is a morning routine right. Part of it is is definitely like in a morning routine, and I've always tried to structure my morning routine based on what I need the most. We just had a conversation about this specifically with my friend and roommate who we're doing this call, we're living with, because, like, we kind of want to correlate and do morning routines together but we have different goals and different needs for it, so so it doesn't make much sense. But, generally speaking, find time to take care of your body, find time to take care of your mind and those are like the main ones and of course, of your soul and all that. That again ties back into meditation and you can fit that into a 20 minute, 30 minute morning routine. So then you take care of yourself first and then you can go out there and take care of other people and take care of everybody else. Now I'll actually tie this back into.

Speaker 2: 40:03

I remember the difference between business and employee mindset is that a lot of the times employees, they just go to work to get their paycheck right, so they're thinking about the reason why I'm doing this is to get a paycheck, whereas a lot of the times entrepreneurs, especially big entrepreneurs, tend to think about solving problems. Right, like I want to solve problems for people, and they get a kick, or they enjoy the solution of problems, not just doing it for the paycheck and they get paid to solve problems. As entrepreneurs, we tend to always solve other people's problems and solve problems for other people, and a lot of the times we tend to forget about taking care of ourselves. But I'm another metaphor that probably might get a little bit overused, and you've heard before you gotta put on your own oxygen mask first before you put oxygen masks on the people, right? So you have to take care of yourself first, otherwise you're not able to solve other people's problems anymore if you're not taking care of yourself yeah, I always like the visual of you can't pour from an empty cup.

Speaker 1: 41:01

That's another good one I like. Like you can't, there's nothing in it, the cup is empty. Last question in entrepreneurship, what lessons have you learned about failure and how do you bounce back?

Speaker 2: 41:10

I would say, failure can be only like temporary defeat if you don't give up. Right, and there's always a lesson in failing. There's always a lesson in failure and it's something that the faster you fail and the faster you bounce back, the faster you'll actually learn. And I think the biggest reason why people are scared to fail is because a big part of it is probably school systems. Right, how they teach us to. You have to over-prepare, otherwise you're going to fail.

Speaker 2: 41:39

And if you fail like failing is the worst thing and you get punished for failing, right, you get shamed and your parents punish you if you fail your exam or something like that. Right, and in entrepreneurship, if you study entrepreneurs and business people or people who are very successful, even employees who've been very successful in climbing the ranks and creating a great life for themselves within a company they go through failures and they're not really afraid of it. Right, they fail and they learn from it. So if you are worried and if you're scared of failing, great way to overcome that is exposure therapy. If you fail one time and you've got shame for it, then it's going to be really painful, it's going to hurt. But if you fail 50 times and you're still okay, then you're like oh okay, well, just another one, what can I learn? And you move through it right. So I think the more you fail, the easier it becomes to fail and the easier it becomes to bounce back and learn from it.

Speaker 1: 42:30

Yeah, it was interesting watching some of the interviews with Elon, when the rockets are coming back in and hitting the ground and exploding, and everyone was like you know you failed and I can't believe you hit the ground. And he didn't seem phased at all. He's like let's send up another one, we'll figure out what went wrong and move on. So good example of you know the rocket blew up, but we'll try to do better on the next one and I think that's really all you can do, right, like make less mistakes than the time before that. The time before, that's what you got to focus on.

Speaker 2: 43:05

So, andre, let's try to bring it all together. What's one thing listeners can do today to improve their mental and social health while pursuing their goals for their own business? Wonderful, I would say that you can try doing a social health checklist that I created is like three, three daily small tasks that you can do that you can do daily and you can start today and see how it goes. So one of them is about yourself, the relationship with yourself, which is journaling or writing or focusing with the meditation, or you can do this in the mirror. In the mirror, three things that you are proud of, three things that you are grateful for and three things that you forgive. Right these three by three, basically, and it's it's really very powerful for reshaping and taking care of the relationship you have with yourself and with your brain.

Speaker 2: 43:41

Second is the social health aspect and deepening the relationships and staying in touch with people, which is writing a short gratitude list, gratitude letter or a message to somebody, somebody that you appreciate, that you have in your life, whether that's a partner, a business partner, a family or a friend. Write a short appreciation, gratitude letter to them, and it's great for you, it's great for them as well. And then, third is more so for growing your network and growing your confidence outside, and that can be give a compliment to a stranger, or wave at three strangers and say hello to three strangers, or send messages to the random people that you see on Facebook to give them a compliment if you're not going outside at all. But, generally speaking, it's best to do it in person. And so these three things as a checklist to do daily, or just start today and see how you feel after it. I recommend to maintain mental and social health.

Speaker 1: 44:32

Perfect. Well, thank you for coming out. I'd love your input. Share your questions or feedback on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, youtube or anywhere you get your wonderful podcasts. Please leave a review, if you can, let me know how it's going. I'd love to see a couple five stars fly up. Well, thank you much for coming out. I love you all. See ya, thank you.