Bipolar Disorder Can be a Superpower? Entrepreneurship and Mental Health with Andrew DeGood

00:00:00
Andrew de Good joins me on this episode, and it's moving and impactful and timely. We talk about the mental health challenges that are facing our country and our world, and specifically the entrepreneurial subsector sector of our population. And, um, we chat a lot about bipolar disorder type one and two, and dive into his story about how he went undiagnosed for many, many years and how he performed at a very high level, particularly through his manic periods, and how someone in HR, when he was at his former job, told him, absolutely do not mention anything about this. This was back in 2010. And so he kept it all a secret for over a decade, I think.

00:00:58
Eleven years. And then about three years ago, he started telling his story and one of his posts on LinkedIn went viral. And his story has absolutely resonated with a lot of people. We talk a lot about business and the ups and downs of business, but particularly in the context of mental health, and how being an entrepreneur can create mental health challenges. And people that are prone to having mental health challenges or conditions disorders tend to be drawn to entrepreneurship as well.

00:01:37
It's jampacked with practical and inspiring information for sure. Anyone who knows anyone who's dealing with any kind of mental health struggle right now, honestly, everyone should listen to this because we talk a lot about not just medication, but also what we should all be doing with regard to staying healthy and keeping our mental fitness in check and on the up and very, very timely. Like I said, andrew deals with a lot of entrepreneurs and he's working on one project that he can't yet talk about and another project that is soon to be launched, which is supporting particularly men who are struggling with mental health challenges. So again, this is a needed conversation and I'm just thankful that he's decided to be vulnerable and transparent with his story and thankful that he spent some valuable time with us. Enjoy.

00:02:40
Welcome to the from Adversity to Abundance podcast. Are you an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur? Then this show is for you. Each week, we bring you impactful stories of real people who have overcome painful human adversity to create a life of abundance. A life of abundance.

00:03:02
You are not alone in your struggle. Join us and you will experience the power of true stories and gain practical knowledge from founders who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth. This podcast will encourage you, through your health, relationship and financial challenges so you can become the hero in your quest for freedom. Take ownership of the life you are destined to live. Turn your adversity into abundance.

00:03:39
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the from Adversity to Abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm thrilled today to have with us a special guest, Andrew de Good. Andrew, how are you doing today? I am fantastic, Jamie. Thanks.

00:03:54
Awesome. We've been trying to make this happen for a bit now. We've both had issues and here we are. I'm pumped that we could connect and bring some value to our listeners. Andrew, you are a tech entrepreneur.

00:04:08
You've had at least one successful business exit for sure that we're going to talk about. And you're also someone who openly talks about your challenges and your journey dealing with mental health and specifically bipolar disorder. So we're going to talk a lot about that and the kind of crossover between entrepreneurship and mental health. But why don't you drill in for the listener? What are you up to today?

00:04:39
Who are you today? Yeah, thanks, Jamie, I appreciate that and really excited to be here and be able to talk about not only the entrepreneurship side, but obviously mental health. So currently today, as you mentioned, I exited Canopy financial technology partners. I know that's a mouthful back in 2022 and I spent a little bit of time with another startup in 23, but ended up stepping away from that one. And so right now, unfortunately, I have one tech project that's in stealth mode, so I can't really talk about it.

00:05:16
Got it. Sorry for all the secrecy. And the other project that has additionally been in stealth mode, which is the other half of who I am today, is a men's community largely based around men's mental health, which we will be launching sometime in March, which is called Iron Tribe. That's awesome. Yeah, I've been following you.

00:05:42
We chatted a couple of months ago and I've been following you on social media, particularly LinkedIn, and I just love what you're putting out there and I highly recommend the listener go give you a follow for sure. Let's jump into your backstory. I know you and I were chatting briefly beforehand about the purpose of this show and trying to add value to the listener by discussing adversity. I know you've been through kind of all three types of adversity that we tend to focus on on this show, health, relationship and financial. You want to kind of address.

00:06:23
I know we're going to get into the mental health stuff and how your journey and your battles and ups and downs with that have gone. Let's talk about the other two first, financial and relationship. What comes to mind when I bring up adversity that you've overcome in those two areas? Yeah, those are great questions. And I think I would say that they actually somewhat all tie together, to be honest.

00:06:53
So if it's okay, I think I'm going to actually just jump straight into the mental health and how all of that has together. And very quickly, there's no question they're all related. And especially for entrepreneurs, it's hard to compartmentalize things, for sure. So, yeah, let's do it. Where do you want to start?

00:07:16
So I think in my story, the first place I always go to is seven year old Andrew. So at seven years old was what was my first hypomanic or mixed state episode as a result of being bipolar, too. Now, that was a really long time ago, and as you can imagine, mental health was not a huge topic in the 1980s. We certainly didn't understand what was going on back there. Very little was known about bipolar.

00:07:50
So I was really looked at as a very outgoing little kid who had some pretty significant anger management issues, is what everybody believed. So now I would go another 28 years. It would be 28 years later, Jamie, until I was actually diagnosed, which is in 2010. And throughout those 28 years, living with undiagnosed bipolar two created a whole bunch of challenges. So I would later on, go on to have a lot of challenges with what people thought was addiction at the time as well, which really I was just self medicating to offset the depression and the hypomania related to the bipolar.

00:08:47
As you can imagine, that then brings a lot of financial issues and a lot of ups and downs. And I dropped out of college after about a year and a half. Just couldn't cope. The bipolar again, still undiagnosed. Having a lot of issues with that.

00:09:10
I would go ten years through multiple industries. I was a bartender, a waiter, a food and beverage director. I worked in the car industry as a car salesman. I was a furniture salesman. And it wouldn't be until the early 2000s until I landed into the financial arena, which would later on take me into the fintech space.

00:09:37
So that presented a lot of challenges in corporate life as well. I would have these outbursts, and it would put a lot of strain on a lot of the relationships that were going on in a corporate setting. That makes total sense. So your mental health challenges bled into your financial life and your relationships. And again, like we've said, they're not separate.

00:10:05
Everything is related, and even mental health, and this is a whole burgeoning part of this field is related to physical health, and we can get into all that later, but it's not like you can just put mental health on a shelf. And it doesn't affect anything else for sure.

00:10:30
Let's define a couple of things. What is bipolar disorder and what is bipolar disorder type two? Yeah, great. Thanks for bringing that up, Jamie. So there's bipolar one and bipolar two effectively.

00:10:44
So we'll talk about bipolar kind of at a high level, which is you have what are called manic or hypomanic episodes and depressive episodes. So just think of it as a whole bunch of energy and the life of the party on one side and curled up in bed, depressed on the other side. And in bipolar one, it can have far greater swing on what's called manic side. And a lot of times it can be very damaging. It can be spending lots of money irresponsibly, all sorts of addictive gambling types of personalities.

00:11:31
Yeah. Gambling, sex addiction, drug addiction, so on and so forth. In bipolar one tends to be caught and treated more often because it's on the furthest end of the spectrum. Sure. Whereas bipolar two is slightly more subtle.

00:11:50
Yeah, it's a little more subtle. So in my hypomanic stages, I may talk a little bit more, I may get more irritable and have anger outbursts and things like that. May have some addictive qualities to it when it's untreated. Bipolar two, though, interestingly, tends to have more depression and more depressive episodes. Okay.

00:12:18
My particular genre of bipolar two tends to also have a lot of what's called mixed state, and that is what is where mania or hypomania and depression cross over. So I will get a level of depression that has an energetic feel to it, so I'm not stuck in bed. Right. So it's not what you would traditionally associate to, like you said, a higher energy level of depression. So, yeah, you don't look depressed, quote unquote.

00:12:58
Right, exactly. To the average person on the outside, I wouldn't look depressed. But internally, the self talk, the lack of desire, passion, those are very present internally. Yeah. And for the record, the normal caveats.

00:13:17
Neither of us are doctors, and we're not giving medical advice, anything like that. You're more of an expert than I am. But neither of us are mental health experts, and unfortunately, we've dealt with some of this in our home in the last twelve to 15 months. I've learned a lot about it as well. That said, it's ever changing.

00:13:41
We've only scratched the surface as far as understanding all of this. So we have a long way to go. Neither of us are sitting here saying, this is the final word. On mental health, or we know everything about it, but that's really interesting. So type two is a little bit harder to diagnose, I would say.

00:14:02
Right. Because it's less extreme in some ways. And then there's sort of the mixed bag of mania and depression simultaneously, it sounds like is a phase or an episode. Does that last, you know, a day or six months or. I can, yeah.

00:14:25
So the other thing that's kind of tough about bipolar, both one and two, is it's very unique. Every person with bipolar is like a snowflake, if you will. And so I've known folks with bipolar, too, who have very depressive episodes where they can't get out of bed. I've never had that, so I can't even necessarily relate to it in terms of cycling, even the cycling is very individual. So mine typically tends to be a couple of months on the depressive side, a couple of months on the hypomanic side, although within those, you can still have your kind of ups and downs.

00:15:08
Now, that being said, mine is obviously diagnosed and treated today. So it looks very differently than obviously an undiagnosed, untreated. No. I do appreciate you chatting about this and being open about it.

00:15:25
I'm sure it isn't easy, and maybe it's gotten easier to talk about since you've come out with this, with your own story. But it's such an important, I mean, we're such an important topic. We have a mental health crisis on our hands. And especially in the world of entrepreneurs, there's a higher rate of mental health challenges within the entrepreneurial group than in most, than the quote, unquote, average or non entrepreneurial section of people. Yeah.

00:15:57
And interestingly enough, some of the most famous entrepreneurs that you know are bipolar. So Steve Jobs was bipolar. Richard Branson is bipolar. Elon Musk is.

00:16:14
So bipolar folks are drawn to entrepreneurial pursuits because of that hypomanic or manic. We get, like, super tunnel vision. We can become hyper hyper focused on a thing, and our brain moves at such speed, and we also have a higher level of resilience. So when you spend your entire life going through these ups and downs, it actually gains or builds a significant amount of resilience, which I think, for everybody who's listening understands. Like, there's one key thing to entrepreneurship that's so true, and focus.

00:16:56
I mean, those are two critical things, especially nowadays in today's world where we're getting bombarded with so much information, there's so many shiny objects. As an entrepreneur, oh, there's a business I want to start. Focus has become, I think, even more critical to success. So the fact that in your sort of. Not sort of, but your manic phases, you're more focused and you have more energy and more clarity and more resilience, like you said.

00:17:26
I mean, that is a superpower if you're only looking at it with that absolutely lens. Yeah, there's no question about it. I mean, there's the old adage of, I hate being bipolar. It's awesome, because to your point, there are sides of it that are superpowers. And people have asked me this question, if I could take away your bipolar tomorrow, would you let me?

00:17:50
And the answer is absolutely not. Which confuses the heck out of people because they're like, you talk about all these terrible sides to it, and I'm like, yeah, but the great parts for me outweigh those sides of it. Oh, that's great. You can see it that way. That's awesome.

00:18:06
And we had the bipolar general, Greg Martin, on our. On our show a little while ago. Yeah, he's fantastic. And he talked about what a superpower when he was deployed and that his mania was that he was able to accomplish so much. So that was surprising to me to hear that at that time, you think of, oh, bipolar is all bad.

00:18:30
Everything's all bad. No, it's more a matter of understanding it as best we can and managing it and working with it. And obviously, you know about that a lot more than I do. Your backstory, again, it sounds like it did create a lot of ups and downs and a lot of challenges with regard to your financial health and your relationship health and what looked like an addiction, you said, which led to financial challenges. So walk us through kind of, I guess, just say the last five or ten years of your professional career.

00:19:06
What did that look like? Yeah, so diagnosed in 2010, and I was actually doing a startup with someone else at the time, not my own. I just happened to be the, I think it was employee 15 or something. And I got diagnosed. I actually self diagnosed.

00:19:25
I'd had an outburst at work. I was put on leave, unpaid leave. And as you can imagine, freaking out. I was a 30 something had just moved my entire family across the country for a new startup idea. Wow.

00:19:42
So terrifying, to say the least. Sure. And the very first person I ever told in the HR department said, don't ever tell anybody that again. And this just speaks to. For folks to understand.

00:19:56
In 2010, we did not talk about mental health. Not like it is today. Yeah. And to be fair, that's not that long ago, right? We're not talking 19, 10, 18.

00:20:11
We're talking 2010. 2010. 14 years. 14 years ago. Really?

00:20:16
Yeah. But I wanted a seat at the table, right. At that point in time, I was very focused on climbing the corporate ladder. I was in my 30s earlier. Thirty s.

00:20:32
I had my first director role was really doing well career wise. My home life was a bit of a dumpster fire, but that's a totally different story. I got diagnosed. I didn't talk to anybody about it. I'm sorry to jump in the HR rep.

00:20:55
I'm guessing they were trying to help you. Absolutely. They had nothing but my best interest at heart because they knew if I came out and I was public about this, that it would be career suicide, because back then it was. So bipolar is still considered a disability. I don't see it that way personally mine, but technically, we do fall into that category.

00:21:26
And she just knew where I was headed and what I wanted to do, and she knew nobody was going to give me a seat at the big kids table. Got it. If I was the crazy one. Because, again, 2010. Now it makes sense.

00:21:43
Now that makes sense that you would listen to that advice. Why would you just ruin your own career? Absolutely. Okay, so you have an outburst at work, and you're essentially sent. Not essentially, you're sent home on unpaid leave.

00:22:02
And then what happens? Yeah, so that's where I started doing a lot of digging. I was on Google like crazy, trying to figure out what the heck's wrong with me. I didn't want to be this way. Right?

00:22:15
Sure, I knew something was wrong. I just didn't know what. And so I went to psychiatrist for the first time in my entire life. And basically I was like, listen, I think I'm this thing. I think I'm bipolar, too.

00:22:31
Like, I've read all the things. And basically he was like, yeah, that checks. And at that point in time, I went on a mood stabilizer, lamictal, which did an okay job. At that point in time, the drugs were still not very well understood for bipolar the way that they are today. My medication protocol looks very different now, but the biggest problem was I didn't talk to anyone.

00:23:03
And so, like a good little gen xer, I listened to my doctor and I took my pill, and I thought, this is as good as it gets, right? Because, again, this has been front and center for us at home recently.

00:23:23
This is my own take, right? I'm not anti medication by any stretch, but I do think there's a risk that we run in prescribing these medications and saying in acting like that's going to solve all your problems, because then you don't. And I know, and I follow you and I know you have clean eating habits and other things I love to get into here, but you shouldn't stop there. The medication is not going to be the end all, be all to me. That's the risk we run.

00:23:58
And a doctor gives you a prescription and then says, good luck. There's so much more to this than just the prescription. Is that fair? Absolutely. So one of the things I always say is you can't out medicate lifestyle protocols and you can't out lifestyle medication protocols.

00:24:17
Okay? For me, yeah, absolutely. For me, I absolutely have to have both. And what can be very frustrating for some folks is getting the medication protocol is difficult. It takes time.

00:24:34
I unfortunately had not advocated for myself because I had gone into hiding. So I would actually go about eleven years on what I would tell you today was the wrong medication protocol. I would also go eleven years with effectively no lifestyle protocol. So I wouldn't understand why it's important for me to have a predominantly meat based keto diet or why cold plunges are extremely important for me. Did one this morning of the practice of meditation.

00:25:13
Why sleep is like the absolute number one thing, right? There's all of these pieces that go into it. So, yeah, 100%. You got to have both sides. Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:26
And I recall it wasn't for me, but being in a psychiatric facility last year and it was dark and the food offered there was extremely unhealthy. So there's not much sunlight going, there's no exercise. I mean, all these things that we all need, whether we have these conditions or not, but I need it more than you. Well, yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

00:25:58
But we all need it.

00:26:03
Let's be honest, there's still a lot we don't know about this. Can it be prevented? I don't know. Probably not as far as. Are you born with it?

00:26:12
I guess so. Right. But there's still a nebulous part of this whole mental health thing. And so all I'm saying is whether you've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder type two or not, you should engage in these healthy living. Absolutely.

00:26:31
That you're talking about. Yeah, I'd recommend that lifestyle protocol to anyone, for sure. Absolutely. Okay. So you go eleven years with essentially just not, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're kind of perpetuating the problems that you have and you're on the wrong medication.

00:26:54
And you're not living a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. I always describe it as I had been walking along in a ditch on the side of the road and somebody handed me a geoprism. And for anybody who's not a Gen X or a boomer, that was a really crappy car. Back in the thought, oh, my gosh, this is so wonderful.

00:27:20
But what I didn't realize was everybody else was driving a Porsche 911 GT. Right? And so here I am, just sort of limping along, like I said, thinking, this is as good as it's going to get. Sure. But, yeah, you're 100% right.

00:27:37
Still having some struggles, but really still so hyper focused on this climb to the c suite. That's what I really wanted, was I thought that was what was going to validate Andrew and that once I got there, I would be happy, and that would solve all my, um, sort of the pandemic happened. And then the pandemic, that, uh, that was a big talk. Talk us through the last few years of your. Have things gone for you?

00:28:14
So in 2019, I was helping to do a startup division within an existing company out in southern California. It was going amazing. We really built out a fantastic team. And then the pandemic hit, and I got on a plane and I flew home. It was the morning after they canceled the NBA season.

00:28:37
I'll never forget. Oh, yeah, that was huge. That's when I realized this is a big deal as well. I was like, I'm glad that Adam Silver is the one who has decided that the pandemic is real, and I don't even really follow the NBA. I was just like, yeah.

00:28:52
That's when I realized this is a big deal. So a couple of months into the pandemic, the PE firm behind the company realized they needed to cut costs. And understandably so we didn't know what was going on with the secondary market. Sure. We didn't know how long this was going to last.

00:29:10
So we ended up parting ways in the summer of 2020. And shortly thereafter, I had a friend who called me up and said, hey, we should start our own company. And I was like, you're crazy. You realize the world is in lockdown, right? And so we would spend about a month talking through it, and by September of 2020, we decided, hey, let's give this a go.

00:29:38
We went out, did our pitch deck, raised our first seed capital round shockingly fast. It was literally a whirlwind. I think it was about three, four weeks from first pitch deck to actually having secured the seed round. So we incorporated the company September 29 of 2020. It was also on my youngest son's birthday, so I'll never forget that one.

00:30:08
And we would go into stealth mode at that point for roughly four months, give or take three, four months at that point. And I can tell you in that stealth mode period, there were multiple things that made me think, oh, gosh, we're not going to be able to do this. Oh, my God, we're going to burn through the seed money and the plane is never going to take off. I think that's one of the things, if you've got any buding entrepreneurs listening, is being that unicorn. Seven, eight, nine digit exit on an entrepreneur, you got the same chances of being Patrick Mahomes.

00:30:50
And I think we don't talk enough about this. Right.

00:30:56
The ods are very much stacked against you to run any successful business, honestly. Yeah, I think a lot of people jump into this thinking like, oh, I'm going to do this thing. And I don't know the numbers on it, Jamie, but it's less than 5%, I'm sure of people who ever found their own company, even fewer who exit.

00:31:24
Last week's episode that came out a week ago. From today, he goes into the numbers, actually. Oh, great. If you missed that episode, go back and listen to that one. Yeah, for sure.

00:31:41
Very difficult to found a successful business and then exit it.

00:31:50
Tons of ups and downs. Entrepreneurship is not easy. I don't want to discourage anyone, but it's not what you see on social media all the time. For sure. Absolutely.

00:32:01
Now, that being said, I love it and I think I'm about to do, and I'm about to do it again. Why? I'm not sure. Some days.

00:32:11
I'm sorry, what kind of business was this? I don't know if we said yes. It was a tech enabled financial services. So it was effectively kind of like a data validation oracle for the secondary market securitizations. I know that all sounds fancy, but it was cleaning up data, assessing risk on mortgage portfolios, basically.

00:32:35
Got it. So this really brings me, I will tell you my one tidbit of advice that I always give to entrepreneurs, and I'm fortunate enough to volunteer in an entrepreneurship high school we have here locally, as well as work with some active entrepreneurs. And that is get a co founder. Now, I had a co founder. I had an amazing co founder, John Levinek.

00:33:03
He's a very brilliant and talented attorney out of the Connecticut area. And we'd known each other for about two know, my wife is a solopreneur. She is a clinical psychologist. She owns two practices that are very successful. One in Chicago, one here in Fort Wayne.

00:33:23
And guess what? When my wife is having a bad, like, there's no one else to pick up the ball, know, take care of whatever it is that's needed to be taken care of. And John was. Was. Not only was it the support of John and I, to just be able to be like, dude, this is tough, and have those conversations, because entrepreneurship can be very lonely also, 100%.

00:33:53
And this is not to have a pity party. For me, that's not the intent, but absolutely.

00:34:02
I don't say that. Trust me. I'm not saying it to brag. Yeah, no, I have no idea. I'm busy and have a lot of calls and meetings and all this stuff, but absolutely, there's not too many people that can really.

00:34:16
Unless you have a business partner, co founder, or you plug yourself into a group of entrepreneurs and be intentional about spending at least some time that way. Most people don't understand what you're going through, so it can be a very lonely situation, and you're constantly dealing with problems.

00:34:40
That's what an entrepreneur and truly a leader is, is you're dealing with solving problems. Otherwise, there'd be no purpose of your company. You don't deal with the good stuff. That's what I always say. Entrepreneurs.

00:34:53
Elon Musk, love him or hate him, actually talks about this, of where there's a funnel that goes to the. All the. Yeah, it's all the bad stuff. The good stuff goes to other. Like, we just process through all the bad crap, and when it's just you, it can be very difficult.

00:35:15
Absolutely. Yeah. So we were really fortunate. We caught all the right breaks. And this is the other piece that I talk about.

00:35:25
You've got to be talented, you've got to be hardworking, and you also have to be lucky. People don't talk about the lucky factor enough. I feel like. Well, not when they're successful, they don't.

00:35:42
Right. There's tons of guys smarter than Elon Musk. It's true. Right. He's got all the other components, but he's also lucky.

00:35:55
We would be really fortunate. Flagstar bank would actually be our first client that we snatched up in early 2021, and we would go through rocket ship growth. So we would ten x the size of the company in five months. So we went from 13 employees to 130 employees in a five month span, which is insane growth, man. Grant Cardone has nothing on you.

00:36:25
It's not huge, but it's not huge from a company size, but that sort of rocket ship. And it was fantastic. We had one of the best, actually, no, we had the best culture I've ever been a part of. Was so fortunate and it was huge, but it definitely had still a little bit of a toll on my mental health. So the hypomania would lead to not enough sleep at periods of time, which would cause know a fair amount of irritability.

00:37:03
But again, John was really there for me and that was where that co founder component was so important. And so John really made sure it didn't bleed into the rest of the company and really helped me out quite a bit. So what would be the biggest change ever would come in April of 2021. And that was where I decided, through a bunch of events that occurred that I needed to come out about being bipolar. And so that set off a LinkedIn post that would go extremely viral.

00:37:40
That was entitled, this is what bipolar looks like. And I was amazed at the outpouring of support and people who were just shocked, they were like, I thought you had had this easy life, this path of gold. Yeah. Must be nice to be Andrew, right? Yeah, exactly.

00:38:02
And I was know that. But even at that point in time, I'll tell wasn't. I wasn't as focused on advocating for myself and that's going to be the big thing I would tell the people as a takeaway, is you have to advocate for your own mental health. Since that point in time. After we exited canopy, I got deep dive into my own mental health and I started doing a lot of research.

00:38:36
Right. And I actually use large language models like perplexity to teach myself more about my own bipolar. And that would go on to really give me a huge journey in the lifestyle protocol and the medication protocol. Yeah, well, I love that point because that is a theme on our show across almost every episode, is just taking ownership of your situation and advocating for yourself. That is not to say you're all by yourself, you're alone, no one else cares.

00:39:13
You already talked about the importance of teamwork and a co founder and those connections and having other people you can rely on. But at the end of the day, the medical system is not going to advocate for you, at least the way it's set up now. No, absolutely. Yeah, you're right. So you've got to advocate for yourself.

00:39:32
I couldn't agree more. And you could. I mean, unfortunately, sometimes we have this belief that every doctor is like a top tier doctor, and that's just not the case.

00:39:47
Canopy was on this high flying, all is good growth like crazy. We would do an additional fundraise in late 2021 and move into a stage to get an offer for acquisition. And it was four x from our initial valuation. So in less than a year to four x, the value of your company. Pretty impressive.

00:40:19
Wow. And we were stoked. Like, we've hit we're the pink unicorn in under a year sort of situation. Right? And then 2022 would happen and the markets would go south real fast, and the fed would step in and our forex acquisition would go and disappear.

00:40:48
And then the Russia Ukraine war would break out in March, which had a tremendous effect on the secondary markets. And honestly, Jamie, it felt like 2020 all over again. And it was like, oh, wow. And it would start down a path of layoffs at first. And I will tell again for any budding entrepreneurs out there, I came from the corporate world.

00:41:18
I have been laid off. I have laid off for other people, and then I have laid off when it's my own company. There is nothing more emotionally just devastating than having to lay someone off who, and you can probably relate to this, I felt personally responsible for those people. I don't mean this, this may sound wrong, but I viewed every employee of that company as like a child of mine. They were my responsibility.

00:41:54
Their family was my responsibility.

00:41:58
Jamie broke down in tears. It's part of the appeal for a lot of entrepreneurs in hiring people is you want a rising tide lists all ships, right? So you want to help your team out along the way. You want your employees to be successful financially, right? Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:23
The converse, the flip side is, okay, this didn't go well. Now I'm letting you go. Yeah, I've been there, and it's not fun. I know we are pushing our time here. So what did the exit look like?

00:42:42
2022. Yeah. So 2022 continued to be a fight on the financial side. It was a struggle. It never got any easier.

00:42:53
And then in late 2022, we really were in a position of where we needed the company to be acquired. We were fortunate enough to find a competitor who wanted to acquire the organization largely for the client base and for the reputation that we had built.

00:43:18
It would have been late December. We signed the papers to have the company acquired. As part of that, I actually stepped away pretty much immediately because it was fairly duplicative for the organization that was acquiring, and again, not in a great market. And so I would step away from that. And like I mentioned, I would just spend time focused on me and trying to figure out my own bipolar, my journey, and then really what was next for me, which has landed me to where we are today and a place I'm super excited.

00:44:00
I'm as pumped for 2024 as any year I've ever been, I will tell you that. That's awesome. Yeah. As we wrap up, I want to find out more about a Kevin Dawstrom has been on the show for the listener. He's been on twice and similar story with regard to the timing of his exit.

00:44:19
It was a fintech called Swell and it was looking amazing.

00:44:27
And then 2022 happened and he was able to exit for a profit. But it wasn't the grand slam he was hoping. It wasn't the pink unicorn he had hoped. Exactly. Now tell us more before the rapid fire round.

00:44:44
Tell us more about what you're up to today. Dive into that for us, if you would. Yeah, so there's kind of two sides to me today. One is I still just have a deep love and excitement and passion around emerging tech. So I am working on something over on the tech side that is in stealth mode.

00:45:04
So unfortunately, we can't really talk about that at all. The other piece is men's mental health became really important to me over the last four to five months. I've had a whole series of events that the universe just kept shoving me into that path, and so I'm working. We'll launch in March with a men's community that's really focused on combating a lot of the things that are going on of this epidemic of not only loneliness that we're seeing with men, but obviously all the things that we know. When you look at the stats, it's an epidemic, really.

00:45:45
In this country. Men are responsible for 100% of mass shootings, 85% to 95% of homicides. We make up 80% of suicides. This is a crazy 170% to 90% of all divorces are initiated by women. If the woman is college educated, it's 90%.

00:46:08
And so we just knew that something needed to be done. And me and a group of gentlemen, we were tired of everybody talking about the numbers, and we realized that people really needed connection and transparency. That's what this is going to all be about. And look towards next month or March, we'll start having some stuff coming out about it that's really good. Yeah, it's absolutely needed specifically for men, like you've said, and like you're focused on.

00:46:41
There's a huge need there. So unfortunately, there's a huge need there. But you're doing something about it. Yeah, I'm learning more and more about it every day, the crossover, the high numbers in entrepreneurship.

00:47:02
I know you said people with mental health challenges or conditions are drawn to entrepreneurship. Do you think that being an entrepreneur can lead to mental health challenges or episodes? Absolutely, I do. Yeah. I think if you don't understand the stress that you're getting into and if you don't have the support mechanisms and the psychology around finances and things like that, it can absolutely lead to some damage, for sure.

00:47:32
I'm looking at a graphic on visual capitalist. I know you're not supposed to refer to something that people can't see on an audio presentation, but mental health and entrepreneurs, and it's got a really easy to interpret graphic that shows addiction and bipolar, specific depression, adhd addiction and bipolar, and the high rates among the entrepreneur group out there. So recommend the listener. Check that out. All right.

00:48:02
I know we're about out of time here, Andrew. This has been really good. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you?

00:48:13
What is one thing people misunderstand? Even though I'm an extroverted extrovert, I oftentimes have a difficult time if I'm in a situation with a large group of people that I don't know. So if you sent me to a conference where I don't know anyone, it's a very intimidating environment for me. Got it. What is a book that you could recommend?

00:48:37
I know you have several back there behind. Uh, I apologize. You're not going to get just one from me. So the number one business book that every entrepreneur should read is idea flow by Jeremy Utley, who used to be the head of the school at Stanford. Number two.

00:48:59
And that one is behind me. Number two is also behind me, which is man enough by Justin Baldoni. And I would say that every man who's struggling with masculinity and what that looks like for them should 100% read that book. And lastly, I would say anybody who has someone in their life who's bipolar, who thinks they might be bipolar, or who is bipolar, should 1000% read the book by Chris Hagen called Bipolar. Not so much.

00:49:32
It does the best job I've ever seen of really laying out what's bipolar one, what's bipolar two, what are the important lifestyle protocols and what are the important medication protocols and really lays out the why in all of those things. Okay. It's really good. I'll throw one more. I don't know if you've read this one, but brain energy by Chris Palmer.

00:50:01
Yeah. It's not quite as tactical as what you just talked about with that book. But he's trying to change the way we approach mental health as a culture and as a medical community specifically and tie in. Basically the gist of it is that everything starts with the mitochondria and that he's not saying, trust me, he's not saying mental health is a made up thing or mental health disorders are not real. He's saying that how all of these things are, the physical, mental, spiritual, all of it is connected.

00:50:36
And that the neurologists in the world need to be speaking with the mental health professionals, psychiatrists and psychologists and kind of general practitioners, et cetera, that we need to approach this from a more holistic aspect. The brain energy is the one I'll throw out. I'm going to have to read that one. It does kind of leave you with, okay, what do I do if, if we're dealing with this tactically? But I love what he's doing big picture wise.

00:51:12
Andrew, what's one question that I haven't asked you that you wish I had?

00:51:18
One question you haven't asked me?

00:51:24
I don't know. I feel like there were so many. We covered a lot. Anything you want to chat about before we sign off? No.

00:51:33
I mean, I think again, if we've got any buding entrepreneurs, there's a couple of things to remember. One, I always recommend to everybody that you have a co founder. Number two is understanding that it's a grind and you've got to love the journey. If you're expecting windfalls of money, you're going to be good chance you might be disappointed. And the last one I will tell you is someone who thought he was going to have a gigantic exit and then has the carpet ripped under him.

00:52:06
Fortunately, I didn't make any bad decisions, but I've heard of a lot of people who, they counted their eggs before they hatched. And that's an important reminder, is in the entrepreneurial world, things can change really fast. Really fast. Very true. And don't compound what might be a problem by creating a much bigger problem.

00:52:34
The other thing I'll throw in is what you said earlier about advocating for yourself on the mental health side. That was a key takeaway for me as well. Andrew, where can our listeners reach out to you? Online, really? The place that I am, Jamie, almost all the time is LinkedIn.

00:52:51
It's the only social media platform that I use a lot. I do speak largely on my page about men's mental health, and it's just literally simply Andrew de Good. I think I might be the only Andrew de good on LinkedIn, so I'm pretty easy to find on that front. And if any know any follow up questions they have for me, I'm always open to new connections and just shoot me a DM on there. Fantastic.

00:53:17
This has been really good. I appreciate everything you're doing, and like I said, I've been following you on LinkedIn and it's all really good stuff and I wish you nothing but the best in the future. And to the listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. And that is your time. Thanks everyone.

00:53:35
Take care. Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. Your time. If you like the show, please share it with your friends and fellow podcast listeners. One entrepreneur at a time.

00:53:47
We can change the world. See you next time.