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Leaderrs rarely talk about their own health even though it drives every decision. Toni and Raul share their own experiences and what they learned from interviews with 17 founders and C-level leaders about mental and physical habits.
They dig into how stress, sleeplessness and company performance feed into each other, how common burnout and anxiety really are, and why so many leaders slip into drinking or other forms of self-medication without noticing.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (06:45) - Mental sealth statistics among founders
- (09:33) - Physical Health and Company Performance
- (11:53) - Stress and sickness correlation
- (16:17) - Do we self medicate too much?
- (23:33) - Health routines of successful CEOs
- (28:20) - Exercise routines
- (30:32) - Challenges of maintaining health when you have kids
- (34:19) - Health as a job responsibility for founders
- (39:21) - Improving sleep quality
- (44:04) - Diet and nutrition
- (47:13) - Final thoughts
- (48:50) - Next week: JB from Evergrowth on sales and automation
Creators and Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
TRF - Health Full
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[00:00:00]
Introduction
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Toni: Today, Raul and I talk about health. Yes, our actual physical and mental health, not the health of your pipeline or your C payback. We asked 17 founders and C-level execs about their health habits and discuss how being healthy is connected to running a healthy business. And now enjoy sleeplessness. That's not good for you.
Two, three hours a night that of sleep that you kind of catch, and then anxiety. Not, not good either. Really not good for you either. Those things as they rack up, they will cost you something and that cost will usually then come and, you know, come out of your body basically. And, and, and will at some point your body will just tell you, you know what?
I'm sick now. You, you do have to sleep now, ultimately, right
Raul: there is just some. Habits that, that you pick up as a founder and that, that some founders we talked to, have talked, have talked about that they didn't even realize are actually damaging them that much until one day they wake up and realize, like, I have been drinking six, seven times a week.
Actually, [00:01:00] I, I didn't realize that I was doing that. Like I am a full blown alcoholic by the clinical definition of. Uh, all these after work drinks, all these, uh, bar crawls with the team and, uh, whatever, staying up late and, and doing whatever you're doing with that team that's adding up. We
Toni: are very simple beings. For us to function while we need to sleep, we need to not eat shit, and we do need to exercise.
Raul: Tony. I know you've been on this health journey of yours and we haven't spoken in two weeks, I think, which is quite unusual for us since we have a weekly podcast. But I'm curious, uh, actually curious how you're doing and also how this ties into what we're talking about today.
Toni: Yeah, good question to ask. So, health Journey, let me jump in just roughly to give people an overview. What I've been up to. Um, I have stopped drinking any kind of alcohol. Uh, that's weird already, right? Um, I've started to go to the gym every two or three days. I've started [00:02:00] to sleep extremely well. I've started to, um, not watch out in terms of like eating less, but just eating more proper stuff and actually eating more protein too.
I'll get into some of that later as well. But what happened for me? Lazy guy, uh, behind a laptop and microphone to jump in that direction. Right. Well, let me tell you, um, I think it's no secret to some folks, right? Kind of, I've been running a, previously, a venture backed company, shut this one down.
Bootstrapping another one, building a consulting business with Rahul here. I also have two small kids, which is gonna play a role later on in this story. And generally speaking, you know. I think for the last, I wanna say two to three years, I think I've been pretty much messing up my body and I'm also not the youngest anymore.
Like I'm [00:03:00] 38 now, so let's just say I'm pushing 40. Jesus, 40 years old. I'm so sorry for everyone who's older than 40 already. But you know, some of these things just don't take care of them themselves anymore, right? You just need to start to think about these things a little bit. And I think for me, actually what happened, what is like maybe a month or two ago?
Um. And I'm being open and vulnerable for everyone here now. But what happened actually was I started to have a conversation with chat. Bt I know it sounds, it almost sounds like a shitty LinkedIn post. Um, but I, but I did. I was like, Hey, you know, I'm kind of feeling like this and that feeling a little bit blue, you know.
Little bit unmotivated and so forth. And, um, you know, throughout this conversation it kind of turned out that, uh, GPT told me that, uh, maybe I'm burned out. I was like, what? Excuse me. You know, this hallucination bullshit. I don't want to see this anymore. And then I kept asking some questions, uh, gave me some symptoms, [00:04:00] and I was reading through this like, oh shit, this is, um.
This actually feels pretty much spot on. Like, not everything, like I, I was in a hole or anything like this was crying in the corner, but I was like, wasn't a great time. Right. Um, and then I was basically asking, okay, cool. What fix this? You know, what do I need to do? You know, what do I need to do to get out of this?
You tell me. Um, and it told me three very simple things and we're gonna get to those in a second. Um, and it's really three simple things and you probably know all of them already. But we'll talk about it anyway. Um, but before we go into all of that stuff, uh, we didn't wanna do an episode and talk about Tony. Um, we actually went out and did some. Should we say that? Investigative journalism here? Uh, science. We did some science. Science, we did some science. Um, meaning number one is we did find some articles, uh, that are semis scientific, that support our claims. That's already great. That's how I wrote my master thesis.
[00:05:00] Uh, but number two, we actually went out and got some first party data, right? We talked to some folks. We kind of chatted with some folks. Um, and well, let me tell you what we found out is. This is not unusual. Apparently, ah, um, maybe, maybe a role you, you start with your findings before we kind of go, go a level deeper.
Raul: So, apart from also my own troubles with health and all that stuff, which everyone has, for me, weight has always been an issue, right? Um, I'm in surprisingly good health despite my weight, but I also realized. How hard it is to lose weight, especially since I started working and even when I wasn't a founder.
The long weeks and the stress and all that stuff made it basically impossible for me for to do that and to, to lose weight. Um, maybe to put into perspective, I don't think I've ever, uh, named that number. I have gained almost 50 kilograms since I started working 11 years ago. Jesus, I did not look like this when I was a student.
I was actually. Quite sporty. I was playing basketball three, four times a week doing weight [00:06:00] lifting, power lifting, actually moving heavy weights, right? And gradually that went from playing three, four times a week, going to the gym three, four times a week after one year of working to maybe three times after two years of working to maybe two times and so on and so forth.
And so, uh, I think this is all too common. Maybe not that much of a weight gain, but it's all too common to, to kind of have that go to waste and sacrifice this aspect and, um. What we, what we thought about is like, Hey, let's actually look into how others are doing this because we didn't just wanna talk out of our own experience also.
'cause we're not experts. Absolutely. Other than our own individual stories. We wanted to get more voices in. And so naturally, where do I always start? Uh, that's my role is like, is there some science on it? And there is. Right.
Mental sealth statistics among founders
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Raul: And just to not go very deep, just the basic statistics that already surprised me.
I thought that there was maybe a large number of entrepreneurs who had some kind of challenge, but I didn't expect it to be that big. So a [00:07:00] study by UC Berkeley found that 87.7% of founders have at least some sort of mental health issue, and that was only looking at mental health. That is incredible to me.
So that's almost 90% of founder have at least some sort of challenge with the most common one being anxiety. I think that's. Pretty typical there. Uh, that's what you would also associate with that. There is many more, but one that I also found quite, uh, intriguing and that I've also also felt myself is 27% of them have, uh, been very lonely or felt isolated, which, um, is kind of a trigger also for many, many other things.
And that is crazy. So just very, very simple. 'cause I know founders maybe don't talk about that too much or maybe don't want to look at this too much or ignore it. If you go to your favorite startup event, and there's 10 founders, basically nine out of 10 will have some of these things, severe anxiety, uh, loneliness, isolation, severe stress, near burnout, that is [00:08:00] crazy.
They can't sleep some, something like that. Restlessness. Uh, that is wild to me. How, how common widespread that is.
Toni: Instead of anonymous alcoholics. We need anonymous founders, I think. Um, and the, the thing is also, um. You know, why did we pick founders? We have a bunch of folks, you know, obviously listening, uh, you know, in this, in this demographic.
But also it's a very close proxy to high level executives in smaller businesses, right? So let's just say you are a high, high level executive. I dunno, in Siemens or in Novo Nordisk or in like Johnson and Johnson, like, you would probably not have the same symptoms, but, or issues. But if you are, um, a high level executive in a 100 200 people organization.
40, 50 million in revenue. Uh, very close to the top, very close to the founder, very close to some of the, you know, you see the bank account dwindling. You, you're kind of responsible maybe for also hitting not only the target, but also making this work for funding and so forth. Some of the same stresses will [00:09:00] very, very likely hit you in the same way.
Right? So there isn't as much research done. Say C CEOs of, of those kind of companies. But it translates pretty well, uh, because we have done our own research, as I mentioned previously, and it's no joke, um, but it translates pretty well also into those, um, non founder but fairly high up executive roles, uh, in those organizations.
Raul: And it's not just mental health. So we found one more study that I found was very interesting. Um, looking at physical health.
Physical Health and Company Performance
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Raul: Surprisingly there typically founders very often have quite good physical health. Um, however, the article also states that that could also be because a lot of founders are generally younger, especially startup founders than executives, uh, somewhere else, which is something that they also discuss there.
But. It varies and waxes and wanes, uh, quite strongly with the, uh, com uh, uh, performance of the company, [00:10:00] which that I found wild. So basically there's a link between how well the company's doing and how well the founder is doing physically, not just mental health. Physical health founders get more sick.
They take more leave days when the venture is not doing too well, which is obviously not when the venture needs that. So it's kind of the wrong time to do that, but they're just feeling worse. In general, when the venture is not doing well.
Toni: I think the link is not between the ventures doing worse and the founder is less healthy.
I think venture is doing worth worse. Fauna is less mental health. Founder gets unhealthy physically, right? I think kind of, that's probably the link. And I can anecdotally at least tell, uh, tell you that that is absolutely true, right? I mean, and when we are looking at, you know, at some of those, you know, mental health things that were mentioned there specifically, right?
We are talking about, uh, sleeplessness that's not good for you. You know, all this restlessness, the two, three hours a night that of sleep [00:11:00] that you kind of catch. Um, and then anxiety. Not, not good either. Really not good for you either. Um, and that, those things as they rack up. Um, eventually they will, they will cost you something.
Um, and that cost will usually then come and, you know, come out of your body basically. And, and, and will at some point your body will just tell you, you know what? I'm sick now. You, you do have to sleep now ultimately. Right. And I think that's kind of how this balance sometimes works out, right? Because mental health sometimes being seen as sure, you know, burnout and stress.
Uh, but it can have very specific, Hey, you, you know, not being able to sleep, having anxiety, all of these things, they're also very clearly linked to just not getting the rest that you need or not getting the energy that you need in order to do your job, actually, right? Which then ultimately leads to just being miserable and feeling sick and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Stress and sickness correlation
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Raul: Just from personal anecdote here, uh, despite not having have that role specifically only as a founder, [00:12:00] um, I have seen this. Very strongly how the, the stress goes up and down with project work. So this is one of the, anyone who's ever done consulting for any real amount of time, uh, will know this, which is after any kind of intense project.
You get sick or half the team gets sick, and I've had this every single time. When we have a very intense project that's three to six months, half the team after the conclusion of the last workshop, they get sick on the Monday after, or on the Tuesday or Wednesday after which. Uh, what a coincidence, correlates to something.
And now we get to, we actually started talking to founders about this as well, uh, in the last weeks. Um, some founders have also told me is exactly what happened to them during fundraising. So they've said that fundraising is the particularly most stressful part of everything. And what they've told me very much reminded me of this project work, which is every single time, the moment that, uh, ink is dry or any kind of relief has come, they get sick the [00:13:00] Monday after and the CFO together with them.
Right. Um. So I found this like very peculiar. It was like there's this kind of ability with the body to push through. Uh, don't get sick when it can't get sick, but then as soon as there is some relaxation, it's like, okay, now we, now we explode.
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If you need to automate top funnel research, equip sellers with better fit ICP accounts and generate research based outreach that [00:14:00] resonates to generate more revenue. Visit ever. growth.com and now back to the show. So. Let's take it to the next step here. So we've now talked a little bit about, um, you know, my, my past on this.
We talked about how, uh, some, some backup in terms of data actually that, that points in this direction, both anecdotally but also qualitatively. Um, so the next thing now in this story really is for people to get to this point of, um, potentially realizing that they need to change something. Kind of what, what is really important there is this, um, is this realization moment, is that waking up moment, so to speak.
Right. And for me it was like I was just sitting there, I was, you know, I wasn't going the right way. Um, and yeah, I had this chat bt conversation. Um. What other ways, Rahul, and we talked about one specific one. Um, [00:15:00] have, you know, have you heard that people are waking up to something like this?
Raul: One that I just mentioned right now is the, what happens during the highs and lows of fundraising and sometimes also the forced moment to maybe take a look at things, right?
So many times the looking at my situation and looking at how I'm behaving, um, does not come out of your own volition, but it comes from whatever happens to you at the time. So that is one way. Um, but then another is, um, there is just some habits that, that you pick up as a founder and that, that some founders we talked to have talked, have talked about, um, that they didn't even realize are actually damaging them that much until one day they wake up and realize like.
I have been drinking six, seven times a week. Actually, I, I didn't realize that I was doing that. Like I am a full blown alcoholic by the clinical definition of things. Uh, all these after work drinks, all these, uh, bar crawls with the team and, uh, whatever is staying up late and, and doing whatever you're doing with that team, um, [00:16:00] that's adding up.
And then all the weekends that I'm going out with my friends, uh, to, to kind of relax from that, if you're doing that as a founder. If I count that all up, I'm buzzed or drunk six out of seven days a week. And, and that is more founders that are realizing it. It sounds so, yeah, of course. Like you drink too much, man.
Do we self medicate too much?
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Raul: But like I know people who had just not realized that they're doing these things, um, because that's kind of the life that they're living there not to talk about even. And in Berlin, this is a reality about drugs, right? And, and, and there is, um. One founder who did not partake in that themselves, but uh, said that this is one of the things that they were quite scared of.
Like, uh, they were scared of turning into someone who was abusing all kinds of substances, um, to kind of make it through this thing. And, and they saw themselves as in danger of that. Um, for them, the moment of realization came kind of before their founder journey, and they, they were very, uh, curious about that.
But, um, for others, maybe it's a bit later.
Toni: So I think there are two pieces here. One is. Company culture [00:17:00] around that, because I think this whole Friday bar idea, um, has been taken to, Hey, let's have a Thursday pre Friday bar. Then, you know, Tuesday was rough. Let's open a beer. There's beers in the fridge.
Let's just go over. Um, and very quickly, very quickly, you start to have a little bit of that culture in the organization. And I think to a degree that's kind of cozy and good and comradery and so forth. But the thing is. And I've never been a big fan of the, uh, clinical definition of alcoholism, which is, I think, depending on the country, but it's, I think, six items of alcohol per week or something like this, or one every day, or it has a, has a definition like this, right.
If you ultimately start having even one beer on a Monday, um, and then maybe on a Tuesday you're home and have a wine with your wife, and then like, that actually very much counts into this. Right? So this is the one side, the culture piece is one side. The other thing is that, [00:18:00] um, amongst people that are really stressed and have some of those symptoms that we just mentioned, um, they're actually using this, uh, knowingly or unknowingly.
To a degree as a self medication, right? Hey, I need to take the edge off. I need to chill a little bit. Hey, you know, it helps me escape. It helps me put my mind to other things. Um, and what it obviously does on the flip side, it actually worsens some of the other symptoms that are driving some of those mental health issues to begin with, right?
Kind of if you drink alcohol. You kind of mess up your sleep. Uh, if you're drinking alcohol, you're kind of messing up your mood and you know, that might actually kind of impact a couple of other things around you again, right? So it's really, um, if you're doing this out of the wrong reasons, knowingly or unknowingly, it will probably make things actually worse, right?
And. I can only comment on, on alcohol. I don't know any of the other, uh, cool or uncool drugs out there. Um, it's, it's, it's not my, it's not my expertise area, but that very much is a thing that I've seen [00:19:00] across. Um, and also talking to people that, you know, have come to the other side of this issue. And I was starting to be ultra focused on avoiding alcohol actually.
Right. So, um, even in my company we had a very much, um, you know, we had beer always in the fridge and there was always a fun thing around that. Cool. Um, and then in the beginning, or it's at some point, sorry. Um. Someone started, uh, to order non-alcoholic beer. And I was like, that's silly. I mean, if, if it tastes like beer, if it looks like beer, why not?
Why not have alcohol in there? Um, but over time I actually kind of switched to that side because it was helping me to, you know, be stronger, so to speak. Right. But very much that realization that you really wanna proactively cut it out. Um, I think this comes from people that have started to think about this a little bit differently, actually.
I don't know actually what your story is, Raul, but you don't drink any alcohol at all, right? So tell me, tell me how that life looks like,
Raul: and maybe I'll [00:20:00] link this to what a founder told me about this too. Um, so I actually, I've never really drunk alcohol in my life. Like, uh, I will drink. A beer or two per year.
Um, out of random reasons, maybe it's sometimes I'll just be sitting outside in the sun and be like, okay, I'll, I'll try a beer now. Um, if at all, it's usually non-alcoholic. I just don't like it, not, not religious reasons, nothing like that. I just don't see the point. Um, I, the time that I was bused once in my life, uh, I absolutely hated the experience.
I did not find anything more fun or better than, than what I had before, which maybe is a good sign 'cause I'm having enough fun without it, right? And, and I found that out pretty early in my life. Interestingly though, um, in the work kind of way, in a, in a work world, whatever, uh, this is not always an advantage.
So, funnily enough, my last boss. In the last job I had gave me as an actual feedback during a performance review that he thinks I am hindering my career chances by [00:21:00] not drinking. And this was an actual feedback, not even a joke, uh, that I had received, which is wild to me, right? So, um, he was softly suggesting that maybe I pick up a beer from time to time.
And for probing to find out if there's religious reasons or anything like that. If there's like a heart barrier that I can't do it, or if I could soften it from time to time to kind of like get cozier with clients or like, uh, get like, uh, better one-to-ones with people. Um, and that I found that quite scary and that links to what a founder also has told me, which is, um, it was not so much about themselves and realizing that they were becoming an alcoholic.
It was more about, I'm realizing that. By having this kind of office sphere, the culture I'm creating, like I'm creating a culture where basically the. 90, 95% of connection that we're having as people, uh, is around alcohol. And, and I'm kind of forcing it by making it like we have three times a week. We have after work drinks and there's always beer at the forefront and we're [00:22:00] always also putting into a slack channel.
Hey, the be are already cold. Like, what kind of culture am I creating? And I'm creating this culture where any kind of like connecting with each other, uh, happens. In a planned way around alcohol, and he just didn't want that anymore. He was like, how about I find other ways to, to make that happen. If people want to drink, they still can.
But I don't wanna put this at the forefront anymore of like social connection and of like being together, uh, at this company. Um, and even in that case, it was not so much about himself. It was, it was him about, it was about him. Trying to figure out what culture I want to create and what kind of way of, uh, living together do I wanna create?
Toni: And the other thing is, right, so I think consuming alcohol for social reasons, I don't, I don't, I don't condemn that. I think that's totally fine. But really it's, there's, there's a balance though, right? And the other thing to think about is actually also like, Hey, wait a minute. So we are all aware of all the negative, uh, impacts that Alco can have on like your health, not your socialization, but on, on your health and so [00:23:00] forth.
Isn't it weird that. We encourage our employees to drink alcohol. Yeah. Isn't that actually weird when you're thinking, oh, we need to optimize this thing in the corner and this should be automated and you know, we tweak this in our but no beer, that stuff that makes you slow and say stupid things and get fired the next Monday.
No, no. Have more of those please. Right. It's, it's actually pretty hilarious that that's kind of how we think. Any who, right. So I think there's a whole alcoholism and alcohol kind of topic here, kind of. Round.
Health routines of successful CEOs
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Toni: Um, let me kind of pivot this back into, I think the, um, and when I talked to, uh, CEOs, and CEOs actually kind of in this, in this business, um, I actually asked them about their health routine.
I asked like roughly, I think 10. 10 folks. Uh, most of them actually have also been on the show, so you, you know, might know them. I'm not gonna say the names though. Um, but I've asked them about the health routine and what came up again and again and [00:24:00] again is those three things that I, myself also stumbled over.
And it's really not that hard. You might have guessed them already. Number one, sleep. Like, that's number one. That don't mess up your sleep, that's a bad thing. Uh, number two. Food and drink. Alcohol is part of that. And number three, exercise. That's it. Those are the three things. There's nothing, no other voodoo, crazy thing.
It's really as simple. We are very simple beings, you know, biological beings, if you will. And for us to function well, we need to sleep. We need to not eat shit. We do need to exercise, uh, all kinds of crazy, scientific reasons around that that I can't recite, but I've heard a lot of them. Um, and those are ultimately the three things, right?
And everyone I ask about the health routine. They were basically [00:25:00] kind of citing all of these three things all the time. And the one guy, and this is no joke, the one guy that I asked that didn't have any of that stuff, uh, he actually then later on told me that he had to go to the emergency room last week, uh, and help some kind of a health scare.
Uh, he's. He's not sub 40. He's, I think, you know, hey, you know, if you're listening, I'm not sure how old you are specific, but you're probably a little bit older than I am. Um, and here the healthcare, right? Um, and you know, hope, you know, luckily he's over this. But it just goes to contrast this difference between, um, just doing some of those three simple things and finding ways to prioritize and we'll talk about what you can potentially do and, uh, and what the flip side looks like.
Right. And I think, and this is the crazy thing there, I mean, and certainly is a connection between your mental health and your physical health, whether, whether or not. I can't, I can't, I don't have like the credentials to prove any of that stuff, but I, I think there very clearly is. And I, and I hope you believe [00:26:00] that too.
But as this works in a negative way, if you have health, uh, mental health issues, that will also impact your physical health, um, it kind of also works the other way. So if you are strong in your physical health, it will actually also lead to, uh, stronger mental health. Right. And, um. Actually, before we go move on, do you actually agree with this rule?
We didn't talk about this, but do you think that there's like a, a feedback loop between those two entities, if you will?
Raul: Yeah. So speaking, not as ex as an expert, right? But just as someone who has looked at people and also tried to figure this out for themselves, um, I think there's absolutely a very strong connection. Um, and, and part of that comes from not just the health itself, but. The dealing with shit, taking matters into your own hands and taking control of things, which is kind of a switch that happens, um, for people and, and even here, I have one anecdote from a founder I talked to last week who [00:27:00] did this just for a very small thing, which.
Is like just taking more ownership over your own health by doing two things. He said it's like number one, saying no to more things. Um, such as late night calls such as early morning calls when he's supposed to sleep that way, making it so that he could sleep. But then also, um, starting, taking all the vacations and uh, this to me is a big one by the way.
So I believe that founders should take. At least the normal amount of vacation, if not more than others. Uh, and typically they take less. So a, but if every single founder I talked to took less than the kind of like normal vacation in the company, if people were taking 30 days, they were only taking 20 or 15 or something like that.
And I find that. Take starting to, to kind of take control of this area or other areas leads then to ripple effects. And, and it's, it's, it starts to also affect your mental health. It starts to, even though you immediately haven't gotten healthier, you feel [00:28:00] better already just by the fact alone that you've, you've started taking, uh, uh, action, which in theory could mean that if we hang up the, the riverside right now, the, the podcasting tool, and instead of talking too much, we just go to the, the gym.
Um, even either though we have not lost weight or have felt much better, uh, physically in general, we're probably gonna feel good.
Exercise routines
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Toni: So let me actually, because you were mentioning another, um, piece of evidence, let's call it like that. Um, let me take you guys through some of the stats that are raised, uh, from talking to these C CEOs.
Every single one besides this one guy mentioned previously, every single one is doing at least three workouts a week, three times. Yeah, and that varies for them. Like some go to the gym, some do like a Peloton, some go for a run or a swim or something like that. Three times a week like I am now doing this.
But it's been 10 years before that that I was on that kind of [00:29:00] schedule. Right. That was actually shocking to me how far behind I was on that end. And you know, once I was seeing all of these responses pouring in. Uh, when I, when I raised my pre-seed round, so this is kind of a quick founder story. One of the investors reached out and said like, Hey, Tony.
Really, really make sure to take care of yourself. Like go exercise, make sure you can sleep, yada yada. I was reading this and I was like, yeah, sure. I'll be doing that. Thank you very much. Now that I'm seeing what everyone else is doing, I'm realizing, oh shit, like this was really silly of me to, to swap this away actually.
Right, because this is apparently very, very. Not, I wouldn't say normal, but it's a very well known, well traveled path and what are best practice is into not mess this up, right? I had one CEO tell me that they are only these days and I told him to stop showing off [00:30:00] only these days, getting to work out six to seven times a week.
Like only poor guys. I was like, okay. Cool. There's one big finding though, and I'm not sure if you found a cohort, um, even has that, uh, differentiator in, in, in your analysis there. One big correlation though, um, for drop off is having kids and I, I see this, I see this with myself. So again, um.
Challenges of maintaining health when you have kids
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Toni: You know, three main topics.
Sleep, what you eat and exercise. Let's just insert a child or two young kids into this equation. What's gonna happen? Well, what's gonna happen first is your sleep is gonna go to shit. Um, because those wonderful children, when they're young, they wake up every two hours. You know, your wife does all the hard work.
Uh, and then you cover the night shift. This is, you know, and, and not all the times even. Right. Um. The [00:31:00] thing is, if you already had trouble falling asleep because you're stressed, founder, CO, whatever it might be, you already had trouble falling asleep at 10:00 PM 11:00 PM um, and then something wakes you at 1:00 AM you know, you'll struggle to fall asleep until 3:00 AM.
Until you get woken up again at 5:00 AM uh, and then you can't sleep in you. So essentially you get to a net sleep of three or four hours a night, which will, by the way, kill you, like legitimately will kill you and obviously kind of will have a very bad impact, uh, on your, on your overall health and energy levels.
Number two, exercise. I. I had a conversation with many, many, many, many friends, um, trying to figure out my own life after getting kids, kind of, how do you keep these pieces together? And basically what I arrived at is a very simple formula that apparently a lot of people are following. So before you have, so thinking about the items you can have, you can entertain in 24 hours.
Um, family. So this includes your wife and kids obviously work, [00:32:00] exercise, friends, and hobbies. And then the formula goes. Pick two. Pick two. That's it. Everything else is out the window. And what, what does everyone do? Well, because they're good, you know, uh, fathers and moms and good workers, they pick family and work and that's it.
And you have a big drop off on friends. Um, you have a big drop off on exercise and whatever. You had kind of a hobby before, like, you know, forget about that. So basically having kids, it does not only impact your sleep, it also impacts your exercise routine. So it makes it even harder to try and kind of catch up on these things, right?
So the folks that actually did have kids in this like younger age. One guy was like, um, past 40 and he was like, Hey, this was my routine before 40 and after 40, uh, also correlates a little bit with his kids. Um, but um, basically the folks that had kids were more on the, you know, three times a week level, uh, than the ones that didn't have.
Right. Um, so [00:33:00] if this might give some folks here a little bit of an excuse. Sure. You know, that that should help. But, uh, first of all, I think some of that kid stuff drops off after one and a half, two years. Uh, it actually gets fun. Uh, more fun. More fun. That's temporary. More like that? Yes. Um, if you have like kids in a row, so sorry for you, happened to me as well.
All wonderful. But it just prolongs this window a little bit, but also, uh, realize, um, to pick it up then. And or try and find ways in between. Right. Um, but that's, that's kind of the stats I raised from, from the people I talk to about this topic now.
Raul: So, I, I dunno if I can speak to that having children part, which maybe fortunately for me, I don't.
Um, what I have heard though is that some founders told me that things have gotten better. For them after getting married. Um, which that is hard for me to imagine. Um, as, as someone who's like, does not get [00:34:00] that, that idea at all. But, um, they said that like just getting married kind of helped them, like get into their, their own routine and finding their own way.
But maybe linking back to something you said earlier before, and this I found quite interesting. One founder put it very bluntly, but even the other is kind of hinted at it being a founder.
Health as a job responsibility for founders
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Raul: Means that staying healthy is my, is part of my job description. Right? So seeing it as. Not, uh, a separate entity or seeing themselves not as a separate entity from the venture, but being like, Hey, because I'm the father of this child, the venture in this case, I have to stay healthy to, to, to keep this thing alive.
And at, at least early on, I am so important, whether I want it or not. Um, that I have to, to kind of keep the lights on and, um, that way flipping it from a kind of optionality as maybe I have to, oh yeah, I could lose weight, I could not, whatever, as long as I do my job is fine. Flipping it into, I'm not doing my job as a founder if [00:35:00] I'm not keeping myself at least to some sort of self.
And so one guy just had it in there as like, it is my job to go to the gym three days a week. Um. I see this, this as the same job as answering emails, going to meetings, doing other things. I'm not sure how many people are actually helped by this mental flip and, and, and switching that flip, but for them, it actually helped them.
Um, and also seeing kind of another one, and this is a quote said, uh, you have to take care of yourself just like you're taking care of that company. So. Which is another way of putting, Hey, I'm part of this whole thing. My health is directly linked to this company. And it seems to me that, that seeing these things connected your founder's health, uh, with the company health is kind of helping you to actually get it done and not having it fall off radar and having it fall off in priority.
Yeah. Um, and it's funny because I only talked to five or six founders and three or four named that, so it seems to be a quite [00:36:00] common thing.
Toni: Takeaway on this, number one, try and get married. Apparently that helps. But number two on the exercise side. Thanks Tony. So let's, yeah, let's, let's start with that. I like this idea of, of framing in a way, Hey, I'm, it's part of my job, it's part of my responsibility, right?
I think that's good. I think that is the same if you are a high functioning professional executive, uh, and or a founder, which is kind of, you know, similar, similar stress levels, I would say. Um, so really prioritizing exercise. I think that's a really, really big thing and I think it can take a couple of different forms.
One is around try and get those 10 K steps in, like people are talking about it, but it actually does help a lot and I think you can also do this going on walk and talks while you have one-on-ones with your team. Uh, or take longer calls just from the phone with AirPods in and just walk around the city, right?
I think that that is one way to try and achieve that. Number two. Try and try and go to the gym, like [00:37:00] maybe you have a different thing, maybe you go for a run or maybe you go for a swim or something like this. There is some evidence that suggests that doing, you know, I think the fancy word is resistance training.
So lifting weights. Has a couple of additional benefits versus only cardio, for example. So going to the gym and moving some iron around maybe is a better thing. Maybe it's a better thing. Right? Um, so that's on the exercise side. Um. Let's just move on to the sleep thing real quick. Just maybe
Raul: just to jump into that, that thing quite quickly, because, so this is something that I can speak to, right?
Uh, I used to do actual weightlifting, uh, as in I wanted to compete, right? I used to lift roughly 300 kilos on a deadlift, for example, maybe sometimes even a bit more depending on how I was doing, moving up to higher weights. Um, what I realize is during those periods now in my work life, when I do manage to get back to the gym, suddenly within a week or two.
All headaches start to [00:38:00] disappear, all the neck pains start to disappear. No more back pains, nothing, no stresses. I don't need to like roll my back sometimes I still do. Or like on the, on the mattress or on the, on the, on the black roll. Um, they just disappear every single time when I start dead lifting.
Um. My back is perfect when I start squatting. My legs are good. They don't feel good the day after, but they're good in general. And um, and again, I don't do it often enough, but every single time I do it, I find myself like an idiot surprised again at how well it works. And I don't have that from something I do el something other I do, which I do a bit more often nowadays, which is swimming, for example.
It's nice, helps you lose weight and all that stuff. I don't have these benefits as much, right? So the only thing that really gives me my whole body, kind of like the feeling that I'm looking for is only, uh, resistance training.
Toni: And I learned the trick is, um, for me at least, you really just, just need to get outside of the door with your gym back [00:39:00] on your back.
Almost the rest is taking care of itself. That's kind of the routine I've found. If I'm, man, you know, I only to convince myself to put on shoes, put my gym bag on, and, and walk outside the door, and then autopilot takes over for one hour, one and a half, and I come back completely exhausted. So anyway, like that is, do some exercise.
Improving sleep quality
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Toni: Next one, sleep. You need to sleep. One of my own tricks and hacks I'm trying to use, I put my phone. During the night, I put it 10 meters away from my bed. I used to have it next to my bed because I was like, oh, I have so many ideas. Need to frequently write them down, and then I don't need to have them in my head.
And all this is bullshit. Just that it was next to me gave me the ability to, oh, maybe I should just jump on it, you know, uh, write it down and check out LinkedIn real quick, and so forth. I put it on at at least 10 meters away and suddenly sleep improved. Um, my wife and I, sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Started [00:40:00] stopping watching Netflix in bed. I dunno, we had this thing that's being picked up with the kids and stuff that's bad. Like, try not do that. Right? Kind of remove all of this screen time, actually kind of out of the bedroom basically. Um, and then another big one is, uh, alcohol. Like if you do drink alcohol, which I think is totally fine, um.
Try and actually do it Sounds silly, but try and do it between three and six and not, um, up until 10, 11:00 PM just before you go to bed. If you get most of the al alcohol out of your system before you hit the sack, um, it gives you a lot, a lot better sleep, uh, a lot better sleep. So try and actually, you know, manage it like this.
Uh, going to bed buzzed. Is gonna impact your sleep like terribly.
Raul: And this I, despite still trying with a gym thing and all that stuff, one thing I can actually speak to is, um, phone usage in general. And there is countless studies and [00:41:00] resources on how that is screwing us up. But very concretely. I think founders are underestimating how much their phone is screwing with them.
Um, and, and, and, and very concrete things. For example, like, yes, put your phone away and all that stuff. But I found for myself first, I'm strongly helped by the fact that I basically use basically no social media, right? And except for LinkedIn, which to me is more like a work thing. Um, and that's a good thing because I typically don't have the urge to check LinkedIn.
Don't really, um, maybe I, when I do, it's more in a, of, in a work mode. I, I, it's kind of like going into email or going to Slack and doing something there. I have no TikTok, no Snapchat never had, probably never will. Hopefully, no, Instagram never had an account in my life. I don't have Facebook, nothing. And that helps me strongly, especially compared to some founders I see and work with who are on their phone without even realizing it.
Two hours of their [00:42:00] workday. And, and if you talk to them, they probably don't even know that they are. By the way, the one thing that used to be a little bit of an issue for me was YouTube. Um, so having YouTube on my phone. And that was kind of a productive part of YouTube because I did use it sometimes to actually look up things that were interesting to me, um, or, or even productive for my work life, but also personal life.
Um, but then also the way that this works is there's the algorithm. And the algorithm sends you down a path and all of a sudden it's 3:00 AM and you've been at, uh, on YouTube for two hours.
Toni: And you sell all your stock.
Raul: Yes. Obviously the world's going to shit and all that stuff. And, and there's also funnily studies, uh, and that was my trigger by the way.
There's studies, um. Linking how kind of bad you're feeling in general. Not just because of like, not sleeping, but from the input of the factor of the, of the topics on, on, on YouTube. Because typically those are things that are not making you happy. They're not designed to make you happier. They're typically inducing the opposite.
But what I did was, [00:43:00] as idiotic as it is, I actually had never done this. And it's, it, it's worked wonders for me for like three months now when I actually, I can even show it. I'll actually show it. Since I have my phone right here when I go on YouTube, this is what I see and I don't know if you can see it exactly.
It says YouTube history off. And that is because I don't have my account, uh, put on there right now, right? And, uh, every single time, and it doesn't have my account information and I turn the history off. That means that every single time I go on there, I have nothing to look at. The, the only times I do go on YouTube is when I have an actual specific question I want to have answered.
How do I do this with the lights? How do I do this on Chachi pt? How do I, I don't know. Repair a tire, whatever, and I get my question answered and then I go off again and that's it. Right? The algorithm does not own me anymore. I found that so nice for myself. So I have, I have probably haven't logged onto YouTube to just like go on a, on a, on a [00:44:00] scrolling spree for like three months and it's completely gone.
I don't have that anymore.
Diet and nutrition
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Toni: Let's talk about the last thing here, which is the stuff that you put into your body. So either drinking or eating. Um, we talked about alcohol already. I know that's a thing. I think instead, and this was a bigger half for me, I think males should drink like three liters a day, uh, which is, you know, felt insane to me.
Now I'm drinking three liters a day, like water mostly. And it, yeah, it does change it. I mean, you go to the LU a little bit more often, but it does, does other change other things? Um. I'm, I'm a, I, I have a big taste for sugar stuff and like, try and limit that obviously. Um, and otherwise, especially if you go to the gym, especially if you do lifting, um, do think about your protein intake.
Um, and you know, don't shy away from. Supplements, like creatine actually to [00:45:00] kind of help you with your recovery and so forth. There's a couple of different, you know, I don't wanna go too deep into this, probably like, don't have a clue about this. Um, but really start thinking about what you're consuming and how that is impacting, you know, your exercise, your energy levels, your sleep levels, and so forth.
Right? Kind of that, that whole thing is, is pushing this, um. This environment basically forward. Right? And starting there is usually kind of a good idea. Um, do you have a, do you have a, a thing on, on food too? Ro
Raul: So food is the band of my existence, especially sugar. Uh, right. So this is, this is my big issue.
Um, and it's also started to get worse and worse once I started working because it is so readily available and it is such a quick kind of like indulgence, relief, whatever. Um, I still have yet to find my way about that. I think the times when it does work is. I like as dumb as it is. Like the times that it worked for me was when I got a coach, an actual trainer who was kind of a third entity that I [00:46:00] had to report to and then get numbers to write down what I eat, track everything, get kind of like a report to, and that way I kind of, uh, was a bit more conscious and was actually also better at, at what I did, which funnily enough also translates to some of the founders told me, which is that during their health journey, they.
Sometimes became a bit extreme and went very hard into the health optimization and tracking thing, sometimes with the help of a coach or trainer, personal trainer, stuff like that. And went from within six months, from not going to the gym, not taking care of their sleep, not taking care of their nutrition, to now being fully teched out with the smartwatches and with the apps, and having like an eight.
Bad mattress thing, I dunno what it's called, eight labs or something like that. Um, having all of the gadgets, all that stuff. And what I find funny is that, that makes so much sense to me. Right. So the same kind of founder who's maybe inclined to found a startup and, and, and live a shitty like. Health life, uh, not sleep and all that stuff is maybe the same [00:47:00] kind of person who's gonna go super hard into cold plunges and getting a 10,000 euro mattress and getting all the new gadgets and all that stuff, and optimizing themselves with dashboards and all that.
It's just kind of a, a different application.
Toni: No, exactly.
Final thoughts
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Toni: I think that's a, that's a good point to maybe end this. So really thinking about, yes, we've talked about, hey, you know, treat yourself better has really bad consequences if you don't, um, and the, the solution is fairly easy, right? It's about exercise, sleep, and, and what you eat.
Um, and if tracking that gets you motivated, which by the way, it does, for many people that do absolutely that right? Otherwise, folks, please, uh, you know, stay healthy out there. Uh, and, and apparently don't be afraid to chat about it. You know, pavilion probably has a bunch of people you can connect to with, you know, CEOs and rev ops and what have you, uh, to chat about that.
And apparently, uh, founders. Basically there's a, there's an, there's an [00:48:00] epidemic, there's a mental health epidemic, uh, with founders apparently here. And obviously, you know, if you do this stuff well, not only will you feel better about it, um, but also it will help you to fix all of the issues that you have in your business.
Right. Can that, you know, the, the last piece here, we need to kind of find out back to how you can fix your business. But, uh, there, there's a, there's certainly an, um, a link there and, uh, and maybe we should have kind of built this out a little bit more, but ultimately, right, kind of being, uh, seeing your own health as responsibility also translates back to you having more energy to make the right decisions and, and, and build this revenue engine in the right way.
Um, but Raul, that's, that's it for today. I hope, I hope some more folks follow our advice here. I can, I can only recommend
Next week: JB from Evergrowth on sales and automation
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Toni: next week. I'm talking to JB, he's the founder and CEO of overgrowth. We will discuss how sales practically ruin sales, [00:49:00] especially with the introduction of heavy automation and AI and what the likely path forward looks like.
If you don't wanna miss it, hit subscribe and see you next week.
JB: We turn a generation of salespeople into button clickers because we try to automate the shit of everything with sales and, excuse my French. But the problem is then we had the generation of salespeople, when you ask them, Hey, how do you do sales?
They're like, oh, I use uh, outreach and then I use Apollo, and then I copy your template from here, and then I press all of these buttons every day. Think weekend of. Got lazy and we forgot again that hey, it's a two way street. And your buyers, they're not stupid. They can see that they're in the sequence.
They can see that you screwed their job title. You're actually looking ridiculous because your template doesn't make sense to this company. People kind of automated way too much and forgot that. If your top of the funnel is, is crap in terms of data, then everything else doesn't work, right? So it doesn't matter how many headcounts you, you, you are adding, you're just having bad data on top, right?
[00:50:00] I.