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The Psychological Challenges of Being a Founder with Dr. Sherry Walling of Zen Founder

Episode #060

Psychologist and founder Dr. Sherry Walling (@zenfounder) might know more than anyone about the psychology of being a founder. In this episode she talks about the relationship between trauma and entrepreneurship; how to deal with stress and loneliness as a founder; the best methods for staying motivated through rough patches; and how she's building her own online business into something that allows her to do what she loves without trading dollars for hours.

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    My Main Takeaways:

    • Sherry discovers that many founders are trauma-survivors who’ve experienced an early loss of a loved one in life.

    • The set of skills required to survive trauma, are similar to the skills required to survive in business

    • If you’ve had a “perfect childhood” that’s still not a great thing because you have not been emotionally prepared for the emotional turbulence of business and real life

    • Brain scans show that founders look at their business the same way they look at their child.

    • ZenFounder was started to solve a problem that she identified: the mental health and well-being for founders

    • Sherry is Rob Walling’s wife.

    • Sherry gets customers for her business by word-to-mouth. She facilitates this by doing conferences talks, podcasts, and similar activities.

    • Back off of the caffeine.

    • One of the biggest issues for founders is loneliness.

    • Another big problem for founders is fractured attention, having to focus on many different things simultaneously

    • Book recommendation: Deep work.

    • Have a schedule and routine that you follow and stick to it.

    • Courtland used to email his mailing list every week indicating what he accomplished the previous week, and what his goals were. But he found that activity to be extremely stressful, so he stopped.

    • Sometimes our emotions exist in our body before they exist in our mind. If you can identify them in your body, you can take action before they go to your head.

    • “The CEO who occasionally takes a customer support call” because they want to remain on the pulse of their customers pains and problems, no matter how big the company gets.

    • Sherry does not need the income from her business, she does it because she’s passionate about solving the problem.

    • Sherry is not a tech founder, but has a deep network of people who are, so she sometimes reaches out to them for help.

    • Sherry is in a mastermind with people who are more technical than her.

    • Show up consistently and you will get noticed: Sherry got the “lucky” opportunity to create a “stress-management guide” for Stripe which would also serve to get her name out there. The only reason that she got this opportunity was because she met patio11 a few years ago at a conference she showed up to.

    • The way to build an audience is to be someone who is engaging and connectable.

    • By sharing your journey publically, people not only know about you, but they also know exactly HOW they could help you based on what you’re sharing.

    • If in your life you’re going to go through a terrible thing, the ONE thing that will decrease the impact on your mental health, is a couple of good relationships.

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    This one is really great. Rarely touched topic of mental health of the founders. Sherry is right on the point, she is clearly a professional. And great questions from Courtland. Thanks!