I got a note from someone who recently saw my Techstars mental health video . He said that could relate to how I describe depression as the “absence of joy.” He went on to write me a long, thoughtful, and brave note about his experience with depression. One thing stood out to me was a statement near the end: “I can’t convince myself to “speak to someone” because it feels wrong if I am paying them. It doesn’t feel whole.“ ...
The Covid crisis has generated, or amplified, a number of separate crises. One of them is a mental health (or mental wellness) crisis. As humans, our entire way of living has been dramatically impacted by Covid. We are isolated from each other, many of us are afraid of being in public, and we are feeling enormous weight from economic, social, familial, and organization pressure. One of our goals with Energize Colorado is to create a non-profit for the extended business community of “Coloradans helping Coloradans”. We decided to make providing Mental Health Resources one of the primary initiatives. ...
Techstars just released a 4-part original video series on entrepreneurship and mental health. I’m featured in one of the four short (< 10 minute) videos. If there was ever a moment in time that challenged our individual and collective mental health, it’s the Covid crisis. When Techstars began working on this project last year, the focus was on increasing awareness of the issues around mental health and entrepreneurship. There was no anticipation of the additional pressure the Covid crisis would put on – well – everyone, everywhere. The timing goal was simply to release it during Mental Health Month 2020 . ...
Covid-19. Presidential Primaries. Gyrations in the Stock Market. Global Pandemic. Trisolarians arriving in their droplet to exterminate us. It’s pretty intense out there right now. Somewhere. But not in my backyard where my dogs roam around. I was in the hospital recently, attached to those devices they attach you to that monitor everything. I was trying to relax by closing my eyes, breathing deeply and slowly, and meditating. Every 30 seconds or so something beeped. After a few minutes of that, I asked the nurse if he could turn off the beeping. He looked at it and said my HR was going below 60 so that’s why it was beeping. I told him my resting HR is low 50s and could he turn the beeping off. He said he couldn’t turn it off because he needed to be alerted whenever my HR went below 60. I suddenly identified with Kafka. ...
Yesterday, Josh Felser of Freestyle Ventures wrote a post titled For the Love of Founders and their mental health . In it, he discussed his own struggles with mental health as an entrepreneur. “Like so many others I just sucked it up, grinded away and punted, hoping for relief down the road. That strategy of denial and repression worked until it didn’t. My founder stress and burnout couldn’t be contained despite my best efforts. In fact, my mental unhealthiness impacted my physical health, by causing debilitating sleep apnea, as diagnosed by UCSF and missed by Stanford (but that is another post). I sold my 2nd company, Crackle, and vowed to leave the high anxiety of being a founder for the relatively easy life of venture, not that it’s actually easy. I was lucky to have exited Crackle before my situation worsened and ultimately found the relief I desperately needed to feel whole again.“ ...
Over the weekend, we spent time with a friend who works for Ten Percent Happier . I’ve explored most of the popular meditation apps in the past few years after getting started meditating on a regular basis by using Headspace . I eventually switched to Insight Timer since I usually now just do silent meditation for 20 minutes first thing each morning. I had never tried Ten Percent Happier, but I felt connected to it because of Ben Rubin, one of the co-founders. We looked seriously at investing in Ben’s prior company Zeo early in the life of Foundry (around the time we invested in Fitbit) and I had several Zeo’s scattered around my world that I used regularly. When I had the headband on, Amy referred to me as “King Brad” which was about the only redeeming thing that happened when I had the headband on (other than getting some data about my sleep.) ...
Recently, I read a well-written article in Fast Company by Jon Dishotsky titled We need to be more honest about what tech culture is doing to our mental health. In it, he had a list of lessons he has learned over the years. Look out for your wake-up call Create routines that prioritize mental health Work in line with your body’s rhythm Make time for silence Find space to unplug Give your emotions credit Cultivate (and listen to) your inner circle These mental health suggestions are all right on the money. I encourage you to go read the article if this is a topic that interests you.
Insight Timer popped up this message after my daily morning meditation yesterday. I’ve been meditating on and off for a while. But it’s been an on and off thing, not a daily habit. In April, after some complex emotional dynamics (how’s that for a euphemism), I decided to start meditating daily. I missed a few days here and there and then in mid-May decided to cut the bullshit with myself and just do it first thing every morning when I woke up. ...
I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth Kraus, Sue Heilbronner, and the work they do through MergeLane . Recently Elizabeth started a platform for the next generation of venture capitalists called Fund81 . It includes a podcast , which has both a public section for everyone and a private section for the Fund81 members. Elizabeth recently interviewed me for Episode 13 where we talked about maintaining mental health in the fast-paced venture capital world while supporting portfolio companies, colleagues, friends, and family wrestling with mental health issues. The public section follows. ...
This first appeared in the Boulder Community Health Foundation Summer 2019 Magazine in an article titled Taking On The Mental Health Stigma. I started the second week of 2013 in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Within two hours of arriving, I was in my hotel room, the shade closed, the door locked, and in bed with a pillow over my head. I couldn’t deal with anything at all. Having been here before, I knew I was in a deep depression. ...