Season 3: 'Mindset of the disruptive entrepreneur',Episode 5

There is a 'dark side' to the entrepreneurial journey. In this episode we interview a business psychologist to explore the challenges of working with sociopaths, and how to deal with them. We also look at the Theranos story and the phenomenon of entrepreneur 'burnout'.

Guest Bios:

Stephanie Thompson is business psychologist & the founder of Insight Matters https://www.linkedin.com/in/insightinitiatives/

What to listen out for:

3:30 The story of Elizabeth Holmes

12:45 The definition of a sociopath

14:30 Behaviours to look out for, for those on the sociopathic spectrum.

16:18 When recruiting, how do you pick up on sociopathic behaviour.

19:15 Why it would be bad, to have a leader who is sociopathic.

21:06 The positive effects that a sociopath can have on a company.

28:54 Technical definition of Burnout

29:14 What does Burnout look like in a entrepreneur

31:35 What can you do to get back on track and out of the Burnout phase

38:03 Stephanie’s One Killer Hack

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Hi there and welcome to the nerds of business podcast. My name is Darren Moffatt. I'm a director at Webbuzz, the growth marketing agency, and I'm your host. It's great to have you with us. Regular listeners will know our vision is to make entrepreneurs happier and we do it by solving the key challenges that all businesses must overcome. In this series, we're exploring mindset, and in particular, the mindset of the very elite, those disruptive entrepreneurs who are re-imagining the world in which we all live. So far in the previous episodes, we've looked at the positive traits that entrepreneurs use to get to the top such as resilience, creativity, confidence, and drive. And of course, the positive story of beating the odds through hard work and innovation is the fairy tale that we all love to believe. But it's rarely as simple as that. Running a company is not for the faint of heart. Anyone who's ever taken the truly courageous step to start a business will know that being a boss is sometimes a very lonely confronting existence. This episode shines a light on the dark side of the entrepreneurial journey. The biggest risk factor is mental health. According to a study by the national Institute of mental health in America, 72% of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected by mental health issues compared with just 48% for the general population. That means that 50% more likely to experience mental health challenges.

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It can start simply enough with some anxiety or stress. Often money worries or negative cashflow are involved insomnia and a lack of sleep can escalate into burnout. And if you're not careful before, you know, it you're fully depressed and unable to function at all.

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It's not glamorous and it's not fun, but it is something we need to talk about. We also need to talk about another negative factor, toxic leadership, often the cause of problems in a business stem from the destructive behaviours of a founder, co-founder or another senior leader, laws, deception and bad culture in the leadership team can take a massive toll on the fortunes of a company. And this is especially so in high stakes, disruptive ventures, as we're about to hear in our opening story, the bad choices of toxic leaders might deliver short term gains. But when the inevitable reckoning arrives, it can kill careers, destroy reputations and vaporize millions of dollars.

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The year is 2003. When a 19-year-old Stanford electrical engineering dropout by the name of Elizabeth Holmes found a company called Theranos. Its aim is to revolutionize medical blood testing. Elizabeth Holmes, like many others is scared of the needles that are necessary for blood tests. So, she sets out to change the way blood tests are run initially with the idea of a wearable patch, not only would a patch render needle useless, but by keeping it on for the whole day, doctors could receive real-time information about patients. It's a genuinely brilliant idea and lucrative one. The global blood testing market is worth more than $50 billion. Although the patch idea is not technically possible. It does attract the attention of early investors. By 2007, the company is already worth $30 million when she hits upon another seemingly more viable solution, small mobile blood testing machine in a touching homage to America's greatest ever inventor.

She calls them, The Edison, by 2010, Elizabeth Holmes has changed her look and deepened her voice. She begins to wear black turtlenecks reminiscent of Steve jobs from apple, her blonde hair and piercing blue eyes combined with a startlingly deep voice to present a compelling public image. She is the epitome of young tech disruptor. The early investors who backed her continue to invest in further funding rounds, word begins to spread and famous names, such as General Mattis and Dr. Henry Kissinger joined the board. By 2010, Theranos is worth a cool $1 billion, even though it’s never released a product sold a thing. In 2013, after a decade, working in the dark, Holmes introduces Theranos to the world via press appearances, where she unveiled a website. She almost immediately becomes a media darling. This leads to new commercial partnerships with iconic brands, such as Walgreens and Safeway.

A year later with $400 million in new funding, Theranos is valued at a whopping $9 billion dollars. Holmes effectively becomes a multi-billionaire thanks to her 50% stake in the company. But despite the company's hefty valuation, Holmes remained tight lipped on how exactly the theranostic technology works. It's soon revealed that the technology has never been submitted for peer review in medical journals. In 2015, the aura around the company and its founder takes a serious hit. When the wall street journal run a scathing article, the story is clearly based on sources from within the company and openly questions, the validity and viability of the theranostic technology. Holmes appears in other media outlets to do damage control. She claimed to be shocked by the wall street journal article and says that Theranos supplied over 1000 pages of documentation to refute the allegations. The wall street journal stands by its reporting and soon drops a bombshell, that the government health agency has forced Theranos to suspend the use of its machine for all, but one type of blood test.

By now it's clear to everyone that the Theranos story is based on an elaborate series of lies, the irresistible narrative of the girl, afraid of needles, who goes on to found a multi-billion-dollar tech company is in fact or a massive fraud. Even her distinctively deep voice is fake in 2018, a federal grand jury indites Holmes and her boyfriend co-founder Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani on nine counts of wire fraud. The US attorney's office states that in order to promote Theranos, both Holmes and Balwani engaged in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients. Also, the company is soon liquidated, and it emerges that the Theranos technology never really worked. The company actually relied on the standard blood testing machines, hidden in their office lab to conduct the millions of tests, it claimed as its own.

If that's the first time you've heard about the Theranos story, I'm sure you're as shocked as I was. It's the worst case of toxic leadership I can find in recent history. The summary you just heard is a highly condensed version of the full saga. As you might imagine, I had to leave out a lot of the detail, but if you want to hear more, I strongly recommend a book called bad blood by John Carreyrou. He's the original journalist who broke the story for the wall street journal. The book is a brilliant read and is now being made into a movie by apple, starring Jennifer Lawrence, as we go to air, the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes is currently taking place in San Jose, California. And for the record, she continues to deny pretty much everything, including misleading investors, whatever the outcome, it's clear, her destructive behaviour ruined lives and destroyed immense shareholder wealth.

I'm not going to speculate on her psychological state, but in the book Carreyrou, openly asks, is Elizabeth Holmes a sociopath? And it's a fair question. At some stage in the course of our working lives, most of us have encountered a sociopath, even if we might only have recognized it in hindsight. If you're running a business or working as a senior leader in a company, dealing with sociopath's can be a career killer. So how can you tell if someone is a toxic colleague and what can you do to minimize the negative impact on yourself and your business?

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I love data. You need to have systems; you need to have structure. You're going to get chopped to pieces. Enthusiasm is unstoppable. We kind of hit a point where we were like, we need another lever. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and richer than you.

This is nerds of business. We'll stop the show in a minute, but first an important announcement. Hi, it's your host, Darren here. If any of the topics discussed in this episode today, raise issues for you. There are places you can get help. Call lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyond blue on 1300 22 46 36. Stay safe. And thanks for listening.

So, the title of today's episode is when entrepreneurs go bad, sociopathy burnout, and the destructive behaviours that ruin people and kill companies. It's a very important show today, as we take a look at big psychological risk factors for founders and the companies they lead because of the sensitive nature of today's topic, we are departing slightly from our usual format instead of our usual panel of guests, we are focusing on just one in-depth conversation with an experienced business psychologist. Regardless of the size of your organization, what you're about to hear is I believe a series of incredible, useful insights for business leaders everywhere. But first here's just a quick reminder that if you're enjoying nerds of business to please hit the subscribe button on your podcast player, it means you'll automatically receive each new episode every fortnight. And it makes it easier for us to stay in touch.

Stephanie Thompson is a qualified psychologist and business coach based in Sydney, Australia with over 25 years’ experience helping executive leaders and entrepreneurs to optimize their mindset and performance. She's the founder of her practice insight matters. And she's regularly in the media appearing on the ABC, channel nine and the financial review. So, we're thrilled to have her as our technical expert for this series on entrepreneurial mindset. I began by asking her to explain the clinical definition of a sociopath, and she goes on to share the red flags. You need to watch out for coping strategies and even tips for recruitment. Later in the show, Stephanie and I will also talk about burnout. So, stick around for that.

Sociopath really is just somebody who doesn't care about causing harm to others. At least that's the functional definition. Okay. So, we might imagine that as the extreme end of the selfishness scale or an altruist or a people pleaser at one end and the heartless, perhaps evil sociopath or psychopath at the other end. So, it's not about an inability to empathize. That's a common perception. It's really not the inability to empathize. Often, they can empathize really quite skilfully and may have good interpersonal skills. It's just that they don't care about how someone else feels.

Reminding me of some people I know, better not mention names. I haven't seen them for a long time. Getting to the nitty gritty, you know, like how does this manifest in an entrepreneur or a business leader?

Many ways. So, a broad heading might be unethical business practices. So, for example, lying about a product to get someone to buy it or knowing a product is likely to harm people but selling it anyway, or stealing via corporate mechanisms, like using bankruptcy intentionally to get out of paying huge supplier debts or defaulting on agreements, just because they can. Interpersonally a kind of bullying sort of rather a vicious kind of bullying would be, um, something you might see as well.

What negative behaviours would employees, partners and colleagues. So those who are in close quarters with, um, someone in the organization or the leader who is a sociopath, um, what would they notice in terms of behaviours, uh, for someone who was on the sociopathic spectrum?

Well, the unnerving thing is that initially at least possibly nothing. In that sociopaths frequently are quite socially skilled. You might, if you're very perceptive, you might notice a little bit of some sense of coldness in the eyes, perhaps, but with exposure, it starts to become quite clear, and you'll see things like high staff turnover. In fact, almost always you would expect that. Um, and then, uh, uh, abetting in of a toxic culture actually because you lose the good staff, the ones who encounter this behaviour and say, well, this is not for me. They leave quite quickly. And you end up with a culture that builds into something where the only people that stay align with those values a bit. So, the culture starts to go downhill. Um, there can be a particular focus on money and getting more for themselves. Others might lose out don't really care. Relationship Breakdowns would be a theme as well. So sudden frequent, um, breakdowns of relationships. The flurry of angry feathers kind of departure, um, because that selfishness, uh, makes other people ultimately very angry with, uh, the sociopath.

So that's obviously disturbing. And, um, the thing that caught my attention straight away is the fact that at the start, you might not be able to tell. So, given that these sociopathic individuals, particularly in leadership positions and CEO positions is right at the very top can potentially have serious impact on the business, from a recruitment perspective, what can people recruiting do to try and pick some of this up?

Well, that's interesting question actually, because this is a big part of what I do. I very frequently am looking at, uh psychometrically and in other ways, looking at people to see whether they're suited to a particular role in particular situation, and there are some indicators, I'm not sure if I want to reveal my secrets, actually, Darren, if there are some indicators that you can spot that definitely give clues and but one of them, I can say it's a broadly, there's a spectrum of leadership style that people will admit to quite readily, and it's more of an authoritarian, um, domineering kind of style, but that by itself, isn't an issue if they have traits such as, um, sort of sympathy and positivity and gentler kind of traits, whereas if that very assertive domineering style, um, is accompanied by negativity and a coldness about relationships, then it manifests entirely differently. So, you have the benevolent dictator on the one hand and more the sociopath on the other. It's very different. So, we need to look at multiple traits in combination to see what kind of animal is this.

And just, this is fascinating stuff. And, uh, particularly those listening who are employers, you know, um, uh, this will really resonate, like how often, when you're engaged by a company to do that bit of work on a potential leader or on an individual, how often in your experience without giving any, any sort of identifying details away, but how often did, does it really throw up a red flag? Like, you know, is it one in 10? Is it one in three? Like, what's the frequency there where you, where you really going back to the company saying, Hmm, I'm really not sure about this individual.

Um, well, quite frequently, the longer I work with the business, I find actually the first-round interviews, which the business may do themselves. They get better and better at sending me better people. Okay. So initially we've got red flags everywhere, and then after a while it starts to improve, but there are different kinds of red flags. It's very important to think of this as being a role specific issue. So, for example, some very charming, pleasant traits in a human being may mean that that person lacks the resilience to be in a particular role. So, in that case, we might say these very lovely traits are actually red flags. They will not do well or be happy in this role. Then there are these harsher traits. And in some situations, we're looking for a bit of sturdiness, a little bit of boldness, a little bit of low, low-grade aggression, if you like with these, with these functional traits as well. And we actually want a little bit of that.

Now, when it comes to these sociopathic qualities, um, uh, you know, leader, why is this bad? You know, so like, um, we've, we've explored, you know, what it looks like and the effects it has on people, but why is it, what effect can it have on our company?

Uh, general theme would be mayhem that the culture really reigns down from the top. And if you've got this reactivity, um, questionable ethics at the top, and you've got the staff turnover, that's expensive and you can't keep good staff, so it's unstable. Um, and if it really is manifesting as poor ethics then eventually the world starts to push back on that. So that could be complaints or negative press or lawsuits. So yes, just a bit of mayhem wasted energy.

Yup. Yup. So, mayhem wasted energy, which are obviously lots of things flow out of that, as you say, possible lawsuits, litigation, complaints, and so on, but, you know, drilling that down that will play out into lower efficiency and productivity across the organization. I would imagine.

Yes. Yes. Well, it's very expensive having staff wasting their time or spending six months training somebody and having them say, no, you know what? This is not for me. Yeah.

And you know, there's the classic cliche, the two sides of the coin. If we can indulge ourselves in that for a minute, I would that in some cases it's potentially good to have someone with sociopathic, um, traits in an organization. So maybe, um, give us an example of when that might be and, and, and how, what positive, positive effects I leader, um, with those qualities can potentially have on an organization.

Um, well, there's the boldness that can be very beneficial. So, the creation of energy, and we touched on the idea of the courage to be disliked. And actually, I made a, a little model of the courage to be disliked, a scale of it and where we've got at the one end, the people pleaser, altruist and the psychopath, the other, and the sociopath is up on that right-hand side. But they add value by, um, just driving things forward by being unconcerned about being rejected, things are gonna happen.

Yep. So, they're a change agent, their change agent and they're a source of energy. Yeah.

Yes, yes. It's like, this is what I think this is what I'm going to do. If you don't like it. I don't really care. I'm going to make it happen. That's the, uh, the useful energy.

Now to a practical question. Um, certainly I would have liked the answer to this many years ago when I first started encountering the odd sociopath around the traps. How do you deal with a problematic sociopath?

Carefully back away, slowly hope they won't notice you leaving.

Okay. That's, exactly what you're supposed to do. If you encounter a snake in the wild, you're supposed to actually, I don't know if you know about that, but I'm not making this up. Um, you are supposed to not turn around. You're just supposed to back away with your eyes on the snack. Very slowly.

Right. Yes, well there you go.

So same rules for the sociopath then?

Same rules, different kinds of snake. Yeah. So cut your losses. I mean, seriously, it does depend on context. Of course, if this, if you're working for one or they're your business partner, or it's a supplier relationship, you may choose a different strategy, but yeah, cutting your losses is a factor, very important element of this though in dealing with people with sociopathic traits. And it's a really tough one for ordinary warm-hearted folk is acknowledging and believing that they just don't care. It's really hard to imagine that somebody will harm others for a profit. Yeah. And so, it tends to get dismissed and brushed off, but it does happen. We've seen it across history. So, we need to really get that. Um, and understand, you know, in exchange for money or power or kudos, they will leave you bloodied on the ground, so to speak, hopefully not literally, um, yes. And to, and to make decisions accordingly with that firmly in mind.

And so, um, let me share a little story with you. I'm keen to get your thoughts on this. Obviously not mentioning any names, but I've recently become, come across a business in an industry, um, that, uh, I do some work in and this business, um, is run by someone who's got a terrible reputation in another industry. And, um, there's a long litany of, uh, litigation and action and complaint and damage and all kinds of things right, now when faced with something like that. I would imagine that potentially, um, how can I put it, engaging that sociopath, um, uh, maybe trying to, uh, bring them to justice or get them in trouble or whatever. That's a, that's a dangerous tactic. Is that right?

To, to get them in trouble.

Well, if they've done something wrong, I, you know, like obviously you don't just get someone in trouble for the hell of it, but if they've done something wrong or you think they're doing something wrong, how do you play? How do you handle that? How does someone handle that in the workplace or in a business setting?

Oh, that's a, that's a tough question. It's often you'll find in a corporate environment they're working within the law. So, it's not a case of having to, you know, you call the police and they sorted out for you. It may still be really very damaging behaviour. Yes. But it might be legal technically.

Yes. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Again, I'm sorry for the listeners. It's a little abstract, but, um, yes, that's, that's a problem. They are, they're clever enough often to work within the laws. They're not breaking the law. Um, and what they're doing is extremely damaging and often immoral, but that's a different kettle of fish. Um, so now we come to a question that certainly I've wondered about, and I think perhaps many, many others have over the years, you know what? Well, there is an assumption in this question, the question is why is so sociopathy so common in entrepreneurs and business leaders, but maybe that's a false premise. Maybe it isn't that common. So, I guess two parts of the question is that assumption correct. Uh, and if it is, uh, why is it the case?

I think it is correct. My observation is that it's correct. And one of the major reasons is that performance management models and big corporations often select for sociopathic traits inadvertently. It's that bold take no prisoners, make it happen. Financial KPIs dominating without balancing KPIs, as in key performance indicators. Um, when they're all financial, uh, you tend to attract the take, no prisoners, do anything to get it done, kind of personality. Um, there is another way to the top often, um, but it's very contrasting method, which is to be highly skilled, enthusiastic earnest, all these sort of solid qualities. Uh, and it's interesting. Sometimes I find with my clients, these very diligent, earnest characters as they go up the ladder, they're encountering more of these clashing, sociopathic kind of behaviour. They sort of meet each other up, up at the peak of the mountain. Testosterone is a, is a factor there as well. So, there are, as in the drive to get somewhere to achieve, um, and high testosterone males. I'm sorry to say this, Darren cause you're clearly a high testosterone male.

I don't know. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

Well, wait, wait until I finish the sentence. Um, uh, yes. They tend to have more sociopathic traits. Yeah.

Oh, well, yes. High drive, more sociopathic traits. So, okay. So, there is a, um, a correlation there, so to speak, if you've been running a business for a while, or maybe you're in the middle of a difficult start-up journey, chances are, you've already experienced plenty of stress and anxiety. To some extent, this is a natural part of being an entrepreneur, but it can easily get out of hand. Burnout is a very real risk factor for business owners, listen to Stephanie as she explains what it is and how to deal with it. She also shares a positive recovery story. That's a reminder of hope in even the darkest of hours. So, it's Stephanie, you know, anyone that's had a business for a while, um, has probably been through, you know, what I call the ups and downs of the business cycle, you know? And, and, and, and I'm not talking about the financials' here, I'm talking about the emotions, right? So, um, burnout is a really big problem with business owners and entrepreneurs. So, um, before we get into this too deeply, you might like to give us the technical definition of burnout. What exactly is that?

It's a state of exhaustion, mental, definitely. Um, an emotional perhaps also physically.

Yep. So, it's a state of exhaustion and, um, you know, how does this, um, manifest itself in an entrepreneur or business leader? What does it look like? What does it feel like?

Um, it looks like tiredness, poor functioning, um, often major shifts in mood, lower, usually possibly, um, uh, wiring of, uh, anxiety or, uh, irritability. So no longer grounded and, uh, tiredness is a big factor.

And so is that a warning signs. I have a business owner, like, you know, just feeling tired all the time is that the classic kind of red button flashing that they should look out for.

It is although the, the horse may have bolted by that point, actually. So, when somebody is in that state of adrenaline high, so running on adrenaline, the natural outcome of that eventually is the crash, the burnout. Okay. So, the, the warning light, the engine light should be flashing when somebody is, um, burning the midnight oil and just overdoing it. Right?

Yep. Okay. And what negative behaviours or feelings an entrepreneurial, or really anyone notice in someone else who was burned out? So, you know, there may be a common scenario here is business partners. You know, there might be one who's pushing you too hard standing to get close, to being burnt out. The other one is looking at that person going, yeah, acting a bit odd. What's going on? Like, so what are those kinds of behaviours or signals that other people can see in someone approaching burnout?

Well, one thing is just some kind of change in behaviour. Something that is just different, and it could be for one person, it might be, uh, an emotional reactivity. It might be tearfulness, it could be nervousness, or it could be a snappy aggression, or really founded on quite similar biochemistry, really, uh, not thinking so well, negativity is the big one where they just seem to become more negative in some fashion and being off sick, starting to take days off.

I guess, on the flip side, maybe you share with us a couple of quick tips for how do you get over burnout? Like what can someone does you know, to, to remedy that and get back on, back on track?

Well, the heading would be to observe biological imperatives. Nerd Bot

You have awoken the nerd bot again. That was extremely nerdy, Stephanie. Yes. Please explain?

Uh, your needs as a human animal, essentially. So, the fundamentals, sleep, food, rest connection, um, recreation, and the, I mean, a good therapist of course is going to help coach therapist.

Yep. Of course, of course. And in case listeners, you didn't pick that up. That was a subtle plug for Stephanie there. Um, there's very tastefully done. Stephanie. Lovely. Thank you. Now, when it comes to burnout, um, obviously, you know, it's self-evident why this is bad for the individual. Um, but what effect can it have on the company they lead?

Um, it brings to mind an analogy of you may or may not be able to remember this, Darren, but we used to fly, remember airplanes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Remember those. And when, I know, when the staff do their safety talk and, uh, they tell you to make sure that you put your own oxygen mask on first. And why is that? Of course, because if you pass out first, you can't help anybody else. So as the leader of business, you have to be in good shape, at least most of the time, not every minute of every day, but most of the time, um, otherwise yes, it's, uh, it, it cascades down through the business.

Um, and yeah, so that obviously I would imagine again, would the negative manifestations of burnout be going to start to impact on relationships with other workers and stakeholders and the management team and so on. And ultimately if it's left unaddressed, that's then going to start to feed into the financial performance of the business. Do you see that? Do you see that happening often? You know, where the burnout someone is has really let this go on for way too long and it's actually feeding into the bottom line of the business. Yeah.

Oh, hugely. So, in fact, uh, I had a client in, um, not, not long ago who actually was more or less ready to quit, to close the business, to sell it, to get out, just done fed up no longer happy or motivated mood had crashed really terribly, very, very consequential. Now he got a turnaround really fast. It was wonderful watching him. Um, actually, and it has ended up at a point where he's got more time to himself and he's expanding the business. He's growing it. He's gone back to this to creating this kind of legacy that he always wanted to create with his business. And it's wonderful.

Wow. How long did that process take? You know, like from say rock bottom, I I'm assuming he was probably at rock bottom when you started talking with him first, like how long did it take him to get to that, the top of that sort of recovery curve?

Um, top of the recovery curve? Well, I'd say that he was pretty much on track within three months and peaking around about five or six. Yeah. In fact, yes. At least that was by the time we got to six months, it was almost nothing to talk about, he w he was a particularly, uh, responsive, uh, student, if you like of coaching. Um, and yes, a huge turnaround. So very consequential in answer to your question, if the leader of the business or the owner of the business is in a state of burnout, it could threaten the entire enterprise, it's existence. Yeah.

Yep. Absolutely. Because, I mean, I, you know, to share some personal experiences with listeners, I mean, I've certainly, I think I've never formally had counselling or gone to a business psychologist, but I know that there've been times when I've been burned out or I've been very close to it. Um, and, and I've found that certainly at those points, your tendency to care about the outcome is, is less, you know, you're just like, ah, whatever, I can't be bothered, you know? Um, so yeah, so, I mean, I think it's, it's good that we're all talking about this stuff more nowadays, you know, like it's as a practicing psychologist, I mean, what do you think about this very noticeable change in the culture, both in the wider population, but also in the business community from say 10, 20 years ago. Now people are much more openly discussed, depression, burnout and so on. What do you make of that?

Oh, it's incredibly beneficial. I mean, it's just, I I'm biased obviously, but it's so fundamental to the experience of life. We can be doing all of these things in the outside world, but our experience of life is subject to this emotional. This is where we live. So, the fact that this has become a conversation, it's, it seems so obvious and normal. Now, at least to me, I have a bias view because of course, everybody I speak to is that way. Um, or I, I managed to draw it out of them, Uh, but yes, it's, it's so beneficial.

We're coming to the end of, what's been a fairly intense episode. So, before we go, let's lighten the mood with our regular segment nerd under pressure where a guest has to share one killer hack or tip they recommend for you, our listeners. Okay. It's Stephanie Thompson. Um, you are, of course, uh, our, uh, psychology business coaching nerd. And today we're, uh, putting you through a very famous segment here at Nerds of business called

Nerd Under Pressure

Nerd under pressure. So, uh, the series theme is of course, mindset of the disruptive entrepreneur. And we're going to ask you perhaps the definitive question for this series, what is one killer hack or tip you can give to someone who is launching a disruptive start-up for mindset. Okay. So, one killer hack or tip to maximize the efficacy of their mindset. I'm going to give you five seconds thinking time, your time starts now.

Remember that the worst thing that could happen, they can't eat you.

They can't eat you.

They can't eat you. Yes.

You will survive.

You will survive. Yes.

Life is greater than whatever business venture your currently being absorbed by. Yes. Yes.

It's go for it. Basically. It's go for it. And the reason being they can't eat you.

They can't eat you. Okay. I like the, the monster analogy. Um, yeah. Sometimes businesses get out of control, they do feel like a living, breathing, breathing thing, a monster. So, thanks for listening to episode 30 of the nerd’s business podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please leave a review on apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps us climb up the ranks and become more visible to other people. Just like you remember, we want to help as many entrepreneurs and businesses as possible. If you've got a question or some feedback, we'd love to hear from you, you can engage with us at our new website, nerdsofbusiness.com. That's nerdsofbusiness.com. So, feel free to reach out and say hello. I want to thank our guests today. And the team at Webbuzz for helping me put this show together. We'll be back in two weeks with our final episode of the series, which is on the unique leadership lessons of disruptive entrepreneurs. Until then I'm your host, Darren Moffatt. And I look forward to nerding out with you next time. Bye for now.