Ryan Rutan: Welcome back to another episode of the startup therapy podcast. This is Ryan Rutan from startups dot com joined as always by Wil Schroder, my friend, the founder and Ceo of startups dot com, Well, we talk about founders and all the things that go on in our lives and how we can support each other, how we can help each other. One of the things that you and I make a point of is to ask people, how are you doing, right? You the founder not the company, not the P and L, nothing else, not the product, how are you doing? And specifically how are you doing at home? Right? Because we, we know what work life looks like. In a lot of cases. We have pretty decent insight into what's happening in the founder's life as far as that goes, but once they leave the office and they passed that threshold and they're back in the house, what's going on there and what do we typically hear? What's the answer?

Wil Schroter: Well, we typically get lied

Ryan Rutan: to. It's the same

Wil Schroter: way like when somebody says, Hey Ryan, how you doing, you say I'm good, right? Even if you're not good, you just generally assume you're supposed to say you're good. That's

Ryan Rutan: the answer. That's expected,

Wil Schroter: right? And I think that's the crux of the problem as founders. You know, we're in the spot where we have to kind of like fight two battles in life, right? We've got the battle at work with a startup, which is well documented, that we talked about that endlessly, but what we don't talk about and what people are kind of like afraid to bring up is the battle at home that they're also fighting. So when we asked them and we say, hey, you know, how are things at home At 1st? They're kind of like thrown off by the question and we're not trying to pry, we're not trying to like, you know, get another kitchen necessarily. What we're trying to say is if things are crazy at work and crazy at home, we need to talk about that because there's only one of you. All right? So before we get into this next topic, I just want to let you know what we talk about here is like 1% of the conversation, you know, really, this conversation is going on all day long online at groups dot startups dot com Where Ryan and I pretty much talk endlessly with founders about every one of these topics. So if by the end of this discussion, you like the topic and you want to dig into it a little bit more with Ryan and I just had two groups dot startups dot com and we'll pick it up from there.

Ryan Rutan: Yeah, two battles being fought and it ends poorly every time review military history. You'll see it's true. It's science folks. Um, so yeah, and I think that let's let's talk about a little bit around like what is the motivation for lying about this? Like, is it, is it just the fact that as, as founders were so used to just having to bottle stuff up. We we talked about in other episodes where yeah, we're peerless. And, and I don't mean that, I mean that in the sense that like in our work lives, if you're the founder and maybe you've got a co founder, maybe you don't even if you do, you don't necessarily take everything to them. We've talked about this challenge with founders. Like we, we can't always share everything that's bothering us because it can de motivate the team. Um, lots of things can happen. We've gone over this ad nauseam other episodes, But so is that it, is it, is it that simple? It's just we're so used to couching our communications bottling things up and just stuffing it down that, that we carry this from, from work to home as well. I

Wil Schroter: do. And I also think, look just, you know, as a caveat here, there's a bit of a time and a place to share this, right? For sure. You know, this probably isn't worth, you know, dropping, dropping all your shit every single time you get asked like, you know, sitting and having lunch with your employees. Maybe not the time to, to open up all your stuff, but in the right environment, right? With, with, with a trusted resource or person that you're talking to. We've got to talk about this stuff, we've got to say, look, I'm having some challenges at work again, well documented, but I've got some ship going on at home, right? I've got maybe a sick kid, you know, not just like a, maybe like a chronically terminally sick kid, right? Or, or sick relative. I've got challenges with my spouse. I've got challenges, my family. I've got, I've got real stuff that's preventing me from getting my work done. You know, Ryan you and I have had at a personal level and the rest of our team have, have dealt with this nonstop. The reason it works if you can call it that is because we talk about, right, We're very, very, very open about it. You know, over the past decade, I've been in and out of surgeries, right? For all kinds of medical issues begin to, to tell you, but I'm super open about it, right? And I'm like, guys like I'm not, I'm not in great shape. I am on a ton of, of pain medications right now in order to get through this next issue or surgery, etcetera. And so I've got ship going on at home and I feel comfortable talking about it because then Ryan you and I can write some of the same things, you know what I mean,

Ryan Rutan: yep. Yeah, I've, I've, I've moved states and now countries in in search of better health for myself and then uh you know, the situation, we talked about a number of times the podcast and my dad had a stroke last year. That was that was a lot. It was it was a huge weight um and it wasn't as if it wasn't as if, you know, coming into that, it was like, gosh, I've got, you know, three quarters of my week unspoken for my life is just so easy that I can take on a major family emergency uh and and and see that through while also handling all of my work responsibilities without any impact whatsoever. Right? That was not the case. Um but because we had clear communication and trust and understanding, um I knew that I could bring that to the table and I knew that it would be appropriately received, I knew there would be space for it and that we would figure out how to deal with it, right? But if you're in a situation where you're a solo founder, you have co founders who aren't supporting you, um then when these things happen at home, they can have massive, massive repercussions and it's not like you're not already dealing with a lot of stuff, you're adding this onto the pile, right? This is in a creative nightmare, and and now you're in a situation where, you know, a couple of things happen when you're talking about and you're not getting supported um or you're talking about it, or you're just not talking about it, right? And I think the second is even more dangerous, right? Doesn't feel good not to be supported. Um but at least you're, you know, you're getting it off your chest with, with somebody that matters to you, um, goes a long way and I think the worst thing we can do in these situations just keep it stuffed down deep. Um, and, and let it bubble up because it just breaks us. Absolutely.

Wil Schroter: So, you know, I always think about everything like in a video game analogy, right? The huge game and I think about your health bar, right? It's just that, you know, the, the classic troop of all video games

Ryan Rutan: and

Wil Schroter: like our startup alone is gonna deplete our health bar and get us into blinking situation by definition,

Ryan Rutan: I'm going to go a step further. Well, I think both of us have used more than one life token at this point. There's no question. I feel like we've gone, we've gone well in the negative on the health bar and, and had to revive ourselves. There is

Wil Schroter: no question. But what happens is I I think that, that we need to recognize as founders and then those that are in the founders world. Again, this is about also about supporting other founders at that health bar gets depleted, not just at work. Sometimes it's depleted before we even step into the office, so to speak, right? Life has just torn us apart. Now, this can be, again, it could be home life issues. You know, it could be like, we talked about, you know, it could be personal health issues. It could be family health issues. It could be spouse issues. Uh, it could be all kinds of things, right?

Ryan Rutan: Generally a combination of those listed above,

Wil Schroter: It gets ignored twice. It gets ignored by the people around us right now, your co founders, investors, etcetera and most importantly gets ignored by us. Yeah,

Ryan Rutan: That's the Big one. We

Wil Schroter: assume that we're

Ryan Rutan: supposed to have a full health bar when we walk

Wil Schroter: into the office when by definition it is damn near impossible. Right? Take any parent that just made it through covid, right? Watching and schooling kids at home and pretending like they're like, they've got a full steam of energy right? Headed into the workday. Absolutely ridiculously not. And for us to ignore that, right? Or again, back to the premise, not be able to talk about. So when we ask somebody when we ask a founder or were being asked, how are things we should be able to say a little bit fucked up right now, Right? I got some things going on, right? You know, I'm in year two of schooling kids at home, guess who's not there a teacher to take care of these kids all day at home. Right? So that's me. And it's not like kids are getting straight a's and teaching themselves, right? I'm in their dealing with all kinds

Ryan Rutan: of stuff. Yeah.

Wil Schroter: Right. Right? So, uh, so when I get into this, you know, when I'm starting my day at my startup, uh, it's hard to take it a step further, right? Maybe I'm having serious depression issues. Right? And that's my baseline. I'm starting the day with serious depression issues or mental health issues, right? Happens all the time, especially in this business. And so because we don't talk about it, no one assumes, right, because we don't think this far ahead that anybody's dealing with anything with, everybody's at full strength. If I go back to work by sports analogy, I'm sending in a player that is absolutely exhausted and likely injured to go start the game and wondering why they're not scoring points. Like it doesn't work.

Ryan Rutan: Yeah. And I think you touched on something really interesting that I want, I wanna, I wanna ping back to it for a second, which is that you assume that everybody else is doing fine, right? It's not being talked about. So we assume that it's and so therefore I don't want to talk about it either. Um, let's just go ahead and call bullshit on that one. Um, you know, it's, it's not hard, you know, go to go to a startup convention throw a rock. You're likely to hit a troubled founder. Um, it's not hard to find. It can be hard to uncover. All right. For the reasons you just listed. We're just not talking about it. Everybody looks around and assumes that, you know, the instagram moments are the truth and that everybody else is hunky dory and then it's just me that's suffering. And so therefore the best thing to do is to just try to go with the flow, you know, look at status quo as I can. Um, and and fit in right. At what point am I willing to come out and say, look, I don't feel good and I do need help. It's really tough because if you're not seeing that demonstrated around you, the, the admittance, right? The, the being able to vocalize and say, I don't feel good is pure

Wil Schroter: risk at that point

Ryan Rutan: because you have no idea what the reaction is gonna look like because you're not seeing it happen anywhere else. So founders, if you're feeling fucking awesome right now, great. If your home life is great and your business is great, great, we're really happy for you. You don't exist out great. Somebody I did start to see a horn growing out of that person's head, just a single one right in the center. Um, what what I was getting at though is go find someone else and and ask them and, and, and be honest and get them to be honest, because the likelihood is, um, there's somebody very, very close to you right now in your founders circle who is not feeling awesome and could use a little bit of your greatness, but it just takes opening up these conversations and again, like it also doesn't have to start with co founders or other founders, even this can just be people from your social circles. We've talked about this before. They're never going to have the same level of understanding or empathy, right? So you will, you will struggle to help them to understand. But you and I have talked about this before and we both have a lot of personal experience with this. Sometimes you just need somebody to listen to you right? Sometimes you just need to get it off your chest. Sometimes it doesn't matter if they can be more than sympathetic. Of course better if they can. Uh, so this is why, you know, having founders in your circle is important, but if they can't, at least you can air some of this stuff out. Sometimes just hearing yourself go through. It helps a ton, but let's not stop there.

Wil Schroter: We'll look and I don't think people have a good sense for how important the superpower of home is, right? Like if you're going to get into this business, if you're going to get into this journey, you have to have some level of stuff figured out at home. Here's some more of the most common examples. I see where stuff's not figured out. Number one, my family doesn't support me, Right? You know, let the parents etc, I'm going off and do this entrepreneur thing and they are 100% against me when I got started. My parents don't even know what I did. I just left for some weird place called Ohio to go to school and they were like, I don't know what he's doing or where he's going and I didn't know where to go back to. So like if things didn't work out, I couldn't move back home, like my parents were gone and so like not having that support did not make it easier to get started, right? An example of not having a superpower at home. Another example, we go to start our thing, but our spouse isn't on board. I see it all the time when people talk about it because it's, you know, they think they should be embarrassed by it or, or ashamed by it. No, most people aren't on board. This is a weird freaking path, right? Yes,

Ryan Rutan: this is like a regular thing

Wil Schroter: to do, yep,

Ryan Rutan: The spouses saying you're, you're giving up 50% of our income or you're giving up 100% of our income, if, if they're the sole breadwinner, we see this type of thing happen. Um, and it is, and not without reason, right? It is scary and, and it's even scarier for the people who are around us who don't have the full context, right? As the founders, it's all trapped in our heads, We know everything that we want this thing to be, we know the risk, we know what we've calculated, but we're not spending time to make everybody else understand it as well as we do, we can. Um, and so that manifests in, in, you know, either lack of outright support or in some cases actually attacking the idea and, and trying to destabilize and get them to change their minds. Um, I have never experienced that personally. I I experienced the lack of support and there was a little bit of passive aggressive when I decided not to pursue my graduate degree. Uh, there was a little, which was, which was on scholarship and it seemed like a great thing to go and do. Um, there was, there were some questions, right? They were like, why are you doing this? What exactly you think you're going to gain from this? Why would you want to do this instead of this very defined path? You're gonna go do this thing that maybe pans out or turns into something someday versus what looks like a very concrete path forward. Um, so it wasn't that there was any, um, any derision or any any angst or anxiety around the startup itself, it was around the decision, it was the opportunity cost, it wasn't what I was doing, it was what I wasn't doing because I chose

Wil Schroter: startup

Ryan Rutan: and this happens

Wil Schroter: all the time. And I think, and I think that's an important conversation with ourselves, but also with that spouse and I would put it like this if you want to frame it, I have to go out into the ring in the hardest boxing match I'm ever going to have in my life. The only way I can guarantee I won't win it is when the bell rings that I have to go back to my corner, I don't get punched right in the privates by you. Like as soon as I go to, I go to recharge, right? That is that that's the polar opposite of how this is going to work. So when you're not on my team, right? When you're basically undermining me, you have to understand you're undermining my ability to win at what you're so concerned about, right? Yeah,

Ryan Rutan: yeah. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy at that point, if it's all your fault, if if every practice the week leading up to that big match is just your corner man throwing the towel in there. Like I just want to practice, this is gonna be the most important thing in this match to come. I'm just gonna keep throwing the towel in, don't worry about throwing punches, you just stand and watch me throw the towel in, you have no chance of winning, right? When you lack that strong familial support, um, you know, from the spouse from from there, your kids, if they're adults because this was something that was new to me. Um but I ran into a founder really middle of last year who was telling me about how, you know, he had decided to leave his corporate job and that led to some other decisions that needed to be made. Um there was some downsizing of the house and some other changes and plans and the at the time there were still like one or two kids in the house and then two adult Children. And and a lot of the pressure came from the adult Children who were now no longer fully reliant on the parent, but still had a hell of a lot to say about, you know, her plan to leave her corporate job and to start this, this company, which was, that was the first for me. I I of course kids factor into this decision heavily. Um, but that was the first time I had really seen the child as advisor as opposed to just the child as a, as a consideration from a bottom line per special. Pretty interesting.

Wil Schroter: Well, but I think that in every case we've got to be deliberate as the founders of saying, look, I've got some stuff I gotta fix here, right? Here's what I think we do. I think we say, oh well people have problems at home, I have problems at home and there could be anything health problems spousal problem you name, right? And that's just the way the world works. And so I'll just deal with it like everybody else does and and go to work and you can and people do and people have figured it out, right? It's just really unhealthy, Really epically unhealthy. And there's there's ways to address it. And again, it starts with being able to talk about it. It starts when you're sitting, you know, among your co founders or among other founders, etcetera, using them as an example and saying, hey, uh, things are a little messed up right now. Like I need some help working through this because I need to recharge right? I've come to you and Elliot and the rest of our team and I'm like, guys, I am taking a catatonic number of nerve blockers in order to function during the day. Guess what?

Ryan Rutan: And then two minutes later you would tell us the same thing and then about seven minutes later tell us the same, I'm laughing. But it was horrible. Right? It was true. Yeah. But I have to

Wil Schroter: be honest about it. Here's the funny thing, Ryan, 10, 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been right 10 years ago. I would have never brought it up. I would have just,

Ryan Rutan: boy would I have had a lot of questions if we hadn't talked about it. Oh yeah. I mean the fact that I can't remember anything. Yeah, that's that's a question.

Wil Schroter: Um, but it changed, you know, at some point I felt like I had a safe space to talk about this stuff, right? And all of a sudden, once I did it solved so many problems for me because I always thought like, uh, you should be this tough leader and you should fight through the pain and no matter what's happening, you should never talk about it pretend like it doesn't exist because otherwise people will think you're weak and you know what, maybe that's true, right? But for the 10% of use cases where it's true, It's a total bullshit excuse and the other 90% and it prevented me from getting healthy when I needed it. It prevented me from mentally being at my best when I needed it. It was a disaster. And I think again among um, other folks in the organization, I think if they see that that behavior and they're like, oh, it's not okay to talk about what's happening at home, they adopt that and they become just as toxic in their lives and their work lives as the rest of us. And it just perpetuates. And I think it comes from the founder. I think again, we talked about this, we don't set the tone. It doesn't happen,

Ryan Rutan: right? But it's amazing how well setting the tone works and how quickly things can open up. Um, and how quickly things can escalate. And I mean that in the best of ways we started with really, really little things like making it very apparent to the other parents on our team that things like soccer games matter, right? Things like, you know, leaving a little early so you can go and be there as the second parent at that first dentist appointment so that your kid feels a little bit better at that. We made it really apparent and we celebrated some of those things and then we encourage other people to do them. And even just with little things like that, then it opened the door for bigger and bigger and kind of escalating discussions of things that were deeper, more personal, more important, more impactful. Um, and so it was really interesting to me that we didn't necessarily have to fully escalate those things ourselves and sort of show everybody this is okay. It was, you know, open the door for any level of personal discourse and dialogue. And now we have a conversation and now people are talking about this stuff and now people are feeling better. Um, and they're they're finding their own things to talk about there, not just mirroring us and I think that's important. Um, and I want to back up on something else that you said that I thought was really interesting. Um, and and sort of a key insight for founders and that's that we don't always have to be all of anything. Right? So you were saying, you know, I have to be this person who who charges through, you know, the the walls and, you know, I always have on a strong face, um, where I have to be this, you know, emotionally intelligent leader who's who shows vulnerability. Yes, and you can be both of those things. What we tend to see is that people pick one of these tropes and just sort of stick to it. You're like, I'm either the stoic or, or I'm constantly weeping. Well, you don't have to be either. You can definitely be both. Um, and both of these things matter, right? There is a time and a place to your point. They're 10% of the time. It's really valuable to just show your team. I'm just gonna plow through this. I'm not gonna let this get the better of me. I'm going to motor through when you feel like you can do that. I'd argue that happens when you've got a full health bar and you're being attacked by something. Sure, right. But if your health bar is being depleted by both sides simultaneously. Um, and you've got a Honda on this side and the Honda on that side, and you're just getting the 1000 hands death from, from both sides, right? Like it ends poorly, right? You're being depleted from both sides. And so, let's talk about that for a minute will like how important it is to have outlets for for both sides of this conversation, the work piece and the home piece And specifically how those two things don't relate.

Wil Schroter: You know, by the way, I just want to mention if what we're talking about today sounds like the kind of discussion you wish you were having more often. You actually can, you know, we're online all day everyday, working through exactly these types of topics with founders, just like you. So any question you would have or maybe some problem you just want to work through. We're here and we love this stuff and we're easy to find, you know, head over to groups dot startups dot com and let's just start talking as a community, right, in the startup ecosystem. The first step is we have to be okay talking about this stuff. At the very least we don't have to feel attacked by the question, right? So when I sit down with the founder and I asked them, how are things going at home? And again, usually they deflect a little bit, uh, if we have a good relationship, you know, they'll open up a bit and I'll say, look, I'm asking because this entire thing is part of the journey, Right? We're used to like a W2 job where, where you, you clock in, you clock out in your entire world stops and ends, it starts and ends at at that 9-6 schedule, right? That's it. But what we don't realize with this one, that's not the way it works, right? Our entire 3 60 degree view is really important here. And I'm saying, look, if things aren't going well at home, if you've got a total shit show going on at home, I guarantee things aren't gonna go well at work, right? So let's look at the whole picture and more often than not because our startups are so demanding, it creates the problems at home, alright, we're like, oh my God, startups going great, guess what if your startup is going really great? It means someone's seeing less of you. Ergo there's a problem brewing, if not, hasn't exploded yet. These things are tied, I don't understand why, up until now this has always been considered two sides of a conversation and again, now that I say it and I look back and I'm like, wow, I always considered them to separate things church and state, right, you don't talk about your home life, your home life is a totally different battle that has nothing to do with, but I've never, like, I've

Ryan Rutan: never come into work

Wil Schroter: having a shitty day at home, being like ready to kill it right now, none of that

Ryan Rutan: mattered. It depletes you. And I think in a lot of cases, in my case in particular, um you know, I I use my spouse's as a sounding board, right? I know you do the same thing and so when, you know, when, when things are, you know. Tencent work or I'm worried about something, you know, the things aren't going the way I want, you know, customer acquisition is not hitting on all cylinders, whatever it is, I have somebody at home, I can take that too and we we can start to take that for granted. I mean we talked about what a superpower is to have that person. Um, but it's also not a permanent state, right? Um, and it's been interesting, there's been a few times over the last, the last couple of years where the level of support that I've gotten has been diminished, right? And this is not not any type of an attack on on my wife because she listened to this podcast and I fear for my life. Um now, um, it's because she had other things going on and that were, that were important and valuable in her life, which meant that she was just a little less there for me in those moments, right? Which is to say that she goes over the top to be there for me most of the time, but I felt it, I really felt it. I mean, one of them was, was an extreme case when, when she had Covid and was just out of commission for three weeks and I was dealing with trying to, you know, make sure that she was good and that she was taken care of and the kids couldn't go see her. So I'm, and at that point, you know, we had no other help. Um, you know, we didn't have family that could, that could help. It was me, the three kids and trying to care for my wife and trying to care for our business. Um, and I felt it really strongly then, but I think we can all imagine those scenarios, but there have been two other scenarios. There's one she wanted to get her her yoga teaching certification, it was important to her and she did it and it took a ton of her time for an extended period of time. Um, and I realized I didn't have, I couldn't go to her with all of my problems and just talk about my stuff. She had her own important stuff to talk about and I realized that was a little less support in those moments. And I felt it. I really felt it. The the other was as we're working on our house building project, uh, my wife is an architect and she's been spending more of her time working on the designs, working on understanding the engineering complexities of building on the side of a mountain in a country that has landslides and earthquakes. Um, so important stuff, but she's been a little less present for me and I felt it. I was, I was doing some introspection a few weeks ago because I found myself a little more tense, a little more angry, a little less settled in the last 2-3 months. It's real, it's real. And I had not factored that in that. I had just had less of my usual outlet through her. And so I just had some pent up stuff, nothing individually, all that important. Uh, just a bunch of unopened mail essentially just had to be gone through, right. But I didn't have my, my, my partner in crime on that,

Wil Schroter: right? In other words. So, so if if if your wife starts saying she needs a little bit more time attention, whatever she needs, right? And she's of course deserving of it. Um we have to recognize that that's, that's not just this elastic energy bar more energy going towards one thing is energy coming away from something else. Best case, you're like, nope, I'm going to stretch it. Best case, it's just shittier energy, right? If you're more tired, you're not gonna get the same workout. Just that simple, you have less energy. It all comes from somewhere. And that's the part, that's the whole point here, is that if we're looking at how well we're gonna be able to perform for our startup, in many cases that the success or failure of our startup, we can't pretend like what's happening at home in the energy that's being pulled from there is going to somehow magically show up in our work lives, It just isn't right. Um, and all of these things start to add up. So personally, when I'm looking at, uh, you know, what is, what is the next year going to look like for me? I'm not just looking at, hey, what does the business need? I'm looking at my personal life and I'm saying, what's my personal life gonna need, You know what's going on with my family, with the kids, with my personal health etcetera because unless I can move all of those things up, like I kinda add to the health bar, I'm gonna specifically feel it at work, right? I know that's going to be pulled down now. Take that the other direction again, crisis, right? I've had some health issues this past year. Um you know, last year you had the thing with you, was it last year? I can't even remember now. Last

Ryan Rutan: Year, Yep, just a little over a year ago. So long. It feels like yesterday, it feels like 10 years. I know, I know,

Wil Schroter: but but that's where when that happens personally and then the people around us have to be like, okay, shits changed. I'll give you an example when someone is about to deliver a kid, right? No one says to them. Well, I guess nothing will change at work or if you do, you're an idiot, right? I mean, we're all

Ryan Rutan: missing. That was what was said for many decades.

Wil Schroter: Oh yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, probably. Um and and and when we're all idiots for saying it is the right, there's no woman giving birth and at that very moment being like on her phone, you know, I gotta check these messages and if you are, you should not be this podcast more than anybody. Um but what I'm saying is like, we're aware in some situations how our personal lives have such a massive effect on our professional lives, but I think where this is where it starts to get murky and it's a problem. It's that we don't recognize that if we're just dealing with some stuff at home, it's not delivering a kid, but I'm just dealing with some stuff at home. And again, categories of this stuff that people aren't addressing as much as they need to mental health issues, right? I just don't feel good. I'm anxious. I'm depressed. You name it, right? That stuff matters, right? That's not just a state that you're in. That is that is an injury that you have to yourself. That is preventing you from scoring points on the field. It's that simple, right? It has to be recognized and addressed, right? If I got an issue with, with my spouse and we're just not getting along, right? Just all kinds of stuff were up late at night fighting and whatever the issue is, I can't pretend like I'm gonna get up tomorrow and everything's gonna be magically okay? No, once again, I'm injured. I'm I'm I'm winded trying to get on the field. It's not okay. I can't stay up late at night for any reason anymore. The idea of staying

Ryan Rutan: up late at night to

Wil Schroter: fight, like I just can't,

Ryan Rutan: I'd be gone. I'd be out the next day. Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting, but I think this, this raises, you've you've raised a similar point and that we see we sort of get the cataclysmic things, right? Like the, you know, the hospital stay the the the the parental challenge, right? Whatever these, these big, like, life changing moments, the baby, uh, you know, the delivery, all of this stuff. And yet, I think when we look at most of the founders, we know, yes, we see them go through these things and when we see that and we acknowledge it. Um, but when we find founders who are just to that point where we look at them, we go, they're burnt out, right? They're not admitting it yet, but we can see it, they're burnt out. Um, that often comes from this, you know, this very common condition within within the founder world of the death of 1000 cuts, right? It was what I was illustrating before, which is that nothing major happened, but I had just a little bit less support than I was used to. I wasn't going, I wasn't taking things to my wife as often as I was used to. And that had a real impact, right? And that was just one out of out of several factors at the time. Um, and all of these things start to stack up. And so again, like as founders ourselves trying to, trying to to have some level of self care, we need to be aware of these things, we need to be clear that it's not just the major stuff that matters. It's the collection of little things as well. And as founders who are trying to care for other people around us, it's important that we dig in and that we look for these things and that we help people to talk through it, to unearth all of these little things that are impacting their ability to have the energy, they need to be a good founder.

Wil Schroter: Alright, so that was fun. But let's actually keep this conversation going. You've heard what we think about this, but you know, Ryan and I would really like to hear what you think and we're online, like all day long, pretty much talking about every startup topic you could think of from fundraising, the customer acquisition to just really had to get all of this crazy startup stuff out of your head. And there's tons of other founders, just like you, they're weighing in on these topics, so you'll get a chance to just hang out and meet some really smart founders were also super, super easy to find. You head over to groups dot startups dot com and let Ryan and I hear what's on your mind, let's get to know each other a little bit and let's just start having more of these conversations