Leadership Line of Sight 40 with Laurel Anne Stark
Event by Leadership Line of Sight: a Podcast
Taylor Hack, serial entrepreneur and Marketing Strategist at Gravidia Inc., interviews CEO, Laurel Anne Stark on his podcast, “Leadership Line of Sight”.
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Leadership Line of Sight Podcast interview.
Taylor:
Hi there. Welcome to Leadership Line of Sight. My name is Taylor and I'm addicted. I am a serial entrepreneur, and I know I'm gonna go again at some point. And that is part of what I like to bring into the essence of Leadership Line of Sight. I want leaders at every level just to hear more examples of leadership so that maybe they can hear that little leadership voice inside themselves. And I'm also very excited to bring on a guest today. Today we have Laurel Anne Stark with us and Laurel is the founder of Resurgo. What she has noticed is that there are so many people out there that are self-employed and they're dealing with these health challenges, they're dealing with mental health challenges. And what they need is a community, they need tools, they need so much support in order to do what they said were their dreams. Thank you so much for joining us today Laurel. I am excited to talk to you about this subject matter because I have to say, I thought that it might be an indicator that someone would even choose entrepreneurship, that that might be an indicator of their mental health.
Laurel:
Oh, you're so right, Taylor. Yeah. Hi everyone. I'm Laurel Anne Stark. So happy to be here and yeah, that's actually what the research shows is that you have to be a little bit mentally ill to choose entrepreneurship. If you look at the failure rate and the odds of success, you'd have to have poor judgment, or perhaps a large amount of optimism that may border on non-reality, to step into entrepreneurship and believe that you can make a difference, believe that you can succeed. Certainly dr. Michael Freeman did a report out of Berkeley in 2015, called Touched With Fire, and it goes into all the science behind it. And yeah, you're not, you're not wrong.
Taylor:
So my understanding is, that you founded your platform in 2019. And what you were really looking for is to help self-employed women find a way to like affordably achieve that level of control that might kind of lead them towards recovery. What were you seeing before then? So before you stepped in for support, what were the indicators and how were you coming across those?
Laurel:
Sure. Well, it started right here, you know, personally. So back then around like 2018 or so I was married with three step kids, I had a golden retriever, I had a thriving consulting practice, and I was really struggling actually, Taylor. You know, we had great wedding photos, everything looked amazing on LinkedIn, but I was experiencing daily panic attacks, I was experiencing persistent negative thoughts, lots of imposter syndrome. My business was killing it. You know, I'd regularly be asked to speak in front of, you know, like 500 people. And the night before I'd be like crying on the living room floor kind of thing. So my mental health was really not great. And I'm a woman also in long-term recovery. So at that time I'd been sober, I think something nearly seven years. So I had a lot of tools, but it still wasn't enough to help me where I was.
So that was what I was experiencing personally. And then as a business mentor for entrepreneurial women, I was just noticing that the struggles that women were experiencing were quite different than those of men, and a lot of like personal and professional overlap and a lot of trauma response. That's what it looked like to me anyway. And I became, you know, pretty concerned about the state of entrepreneurial women and how we were going to be able to succeed with this level of, you know, internalized sort of systemic bias, et cetera. And then dr. Michael Freeman came out with this report that I mentioned called Touched With Fire and I read it and I was like, oh my God, 72% of entrepreneurs are directly affected by mental illness. Now that's three times the global average, and I was like, this explains so much.
So in that report, I was really seeing a lot of the behaviors that I was struggling with and seeing in my clients. And it just, all of a sudden, it felt like a light bulb went off and I was like, oh my gosh. So what are the supports available for mental health for entrepreneurs? So I spent about 20 hours looking for a solution. I asked my assistant to look for 20 hours and we found nothing like nothing. No mental health support specifically for entrepreneurs, even though we're creating the most jobs, we are, you know, bringing the innovation, like cutting edge innovation and changing the world and making the world a better place. The supports just weren't there.
Taylor:
Is that because we're like functioning mental health challenges?
Laurel:
I think functioning is relative.
Taylor:
Oh that's, tell me more, help me unpack that a little bit. So when, cuz I think a lot of people that do see themselves even as like, they just identify. I had, you know that maybe they've had some damage and some trauma in the past. How do they know, like how do you, where's the line if there's no normal?
Laurel:
I think you just kinda have to look at yourself and you have to realize, you know, are you struggling, are you surviving or are you thriving? And what's your quality of life? Like what's your internal dialogue? Like what's your ability to achieve your goals? What does your day-to-day look like? You know, and entrepreneurs are famous for being either on top of the mountain or under the bed, you know? And so what I did is, I started actually making, I had a paper planner at that time. I know it's like so archaic, but I just sort of became curious about how often I was experiencing sort of negative mental health challenges. And so I just would make an indicator, I would put like a little check mark on the days that weren't great, and I put a smiley face on the days that were great. And I looked back and I had like a three-week bad period. And I was really actually shocked by that. I didn't think it had been going on for so long. So I think just some sort of monitoring is helpful. For me, I realized, at you know, a three-week mark, I was like, okay this is bad. This isn't just like a bad day or a bad week, it's an ongoing situation and maybe it's time to do something.
Taylor:
Wow. Something you just said there, where are you surviving and thriving, because I'll think a lot of us, we actually say we would need help if we were no longer surviving right? Like that's our measurement.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
Some surviving, some doing fine.
Laurel:
Yeah. If I'm not dead in a ditch I'm good, I'm fine. But you know the acronym for fine is fucked up insecure, neurotic, and emotional, right?
Taylor:
Well, I think that that's an accurate description, right?
Laurel:
Agreed. Yeah.
Taylor:
And I think that there's so many people that will see someone and from the outside they'll be like they have it all together, right?
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
And then you're someone who is seen that way. Cuz like you've been on CNN, you've been on CTV. You've been on entrepreneur.com. Like when people look at you from the outside, they're like, well you've got it all together.
Laurel:
Yeah, exactly.
Taylor:
That's where the panic attacks came from, is the anxiety that everyone was treating you like you were got it and on it? Whereas inside you felt that you were in trouble and no one could see.
Laurel:
I think it was a lot of different factors. I think the business success, you know, I was very much enjoying that, that didn't stress me out at all. But I wasn't prepared for the additional workload that came from being married frankly and married with three step kids. So the research shows that women who are in a relationship and live with a man typically do another two and a half hours of unpaid domestic labor per day. Like if you just have a man in your life like that, you live with, it's gonna translate to eight hours of work a week, unpaid, these are stats. I, you know, I love men. I'm with a man, you know, no hate on men absolutely whatsoever. It's just the way that our system's set up. It's the way that society is set up.
Women tend to take on unpaid caregiving work. So that was a struggle. And then being in a blended family with three step kids and trying to figure out how to, you know, parent, but not parent and all that kind of stuff, as well as figuring out what does it look like to be a wife? And also keeping my business up and running. I also had not been diagnosed yet with complex PTSD. And so that was a factor. So I didn't really know what was happening. And I was doing cognitive behavioral therapy and actually, that was really actually hurting more than helping. So I just hadn't been diagnosed and I hadn't figured out, you know, what the solution was for me. But yeah, certainly being married was really what, was what I think caused the suffering, to be honest with you, it was just a lot of pressure, a lot of work. And like you said, you know, this looking like everything's together, having these great wedding photos, great LinkedIn profile and all that and feeling like I couldn't let drop the facade.
Taylor:
Yeah. I often, that's how I interpret anxiety, is that it's the gap between what you see and how you feel.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
You know, and it's where a lot of things come from. Like I was treated for asthma when I was in high school for several years. And no one knew to test a young person's O2 stats. And so I was having month-long panic attacks and it was, it was really challenging. And as an entrepreneur, I kind of felt like that break actually led to my talent, right? Like, for me, I feel as though I can withstand immense pressure. The things I choose to do are based on what you're talking about, which would lead to overwhelm, which leads to like biting off more than you can chew. But for me, like I really feel as though the things I was worried about at the age when I was in high school were existential. They like the things that were concerning me was the fact that I didn't understand more than that we all died. I didn't understand why life was beautiful. And so that now has like translated into my ability to care for other people.
That's something that I think resonates with you as well. Is like the challenges that you had before the reason that you can care for so many people now.
Laurel:
I think it's given me expanded capacity, but you know Taylor, I definitely wanna just say that I really relate to having existential crises in high school. I couldn't understand like why, why is there still war, and why is there still like hungry people, and why are we still cutting down old-growth forests? And you know, all these problems that like have been going on for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years, and we have all these like bright minds and yet here we are still in this, in the human condition. So that really, really baffled me. And I've always had this drive to try to make the world a better place. And I think that definitely going through what I have gone through it gives me more compassion for people and more of an understanding that, you know, no matter what they look like on the outside, that's not the full story by any stretch. And I think also it's made me really prioritize my self-care, really prioritize my mental health. So that way I can show up with a full cup as they say, in order to be of service because I can't be of service if I'm not, you know if I'm not functioning if I'm just surviving.
Taylor:
Yeah. That's something I noted. Like I, I was obsessed for a while with the highest producers that I could gain access to. In real estate, I traveled throughout North America tracking down some of the best people that were running real estate businesses in the world. And it was cool. Sometimes I stayed at their houses and I would literally just like enter into their life. Even going so far as whenever we went to a restaurant, they probably didn't notice, but I ordered whatever they ordered. I just wanted that experience of being on the same fuel, being in the same environment, and taking it all into the point where I just realized all these correlations. Where people that were in balance, these people were so powerful. I didn't understand like when entrepreneurs create jobs for other people when they bring other people in, it's something that is, it's kind of a beautiful thing because most entrepreneurs that can become large enough to provide structures for others. That's a choice.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
They could literally stay solo printers, help zero people make rent or mortgage payments, help zero people experience the growth that probably made them different. But at the same time, they get drafted into everybody else's lives. And when they were outta balance in order to fill their cup, they would diminish the cups of others.
Laurel:
Yeah. Beautifully said.
Taylor:
Yeah. So when you were thinking about now adding structure to this, how did it start? Did you start by forming a community? Did you start by developing? Like, could you see already what help looked like to the point where going right into setting up your app?
Laurel:
Gosh, I wish that would've been so much easier <Laugh>, so much easier. Gosh, no. So this actually started off as a book. So I got obsessed with dr. Michael Freeman's survey or research report, and like yourself, I'm no stranger to reaching out to you know, prolific people in their field and asking, you know, I'm making a connection. So I reached out to dr. Michael Freeman and I asked him if we could talk about his research report, I was deeply concerned. I wanted to know if there was a solution. He very kindly took a call with me and basically said, when I asked him, you know what, okay, so you've established that entrepreneurs are basically fucked. So what's the solution, what do they need? And he said, you know, we're working on that. We're doing another survey. Get back to me in or another research report rather, and get back to me in four years.
And I thought to myself, well, four years is a hell of a long time. And I can't remember specifically who, but during the period that I've been working on this. Actually no, there's a couple of names. So Anthony Bourdain had killed himself. Kate Spade had killed herself. There was I think the founder of Reddit had killed himself, that story was just breaking. So there was a lot of, you know, so I started to get really, really concerned about it. And then I thought, well I just got obsessed, basically like any good entrepreneur. And I started looking at the rest of the data. So what happened then was that the wage gap issue came out of McLean's magazine in Canada, which indicated that there was still a 72% wage gap in Canada, which I had no idea. I thought we were past this. Like, why are we still talking about this? But in Canada at the time you know, if you're white and able-bodied, you're making 72 cents on the dollar for what a man makes. And if you are disabled, or LGBTQ+, or if you are indigenous, or a woman of color; you're making as low as 46 cents on the dollar. And I was blown away and I thought, okay, well, what would it look like to have three X greater risk of mental illness or experiencing mental health concerns, and then also getting paid like half or a quarter, like how would that stress you out? And I thought, well, you know, quite a bit. And then the Me Too movement came out. And then I, you know, I was reading about the side effects of what it looks like to be, you know, harassed in the workplace or what it looks like to be assaulted and kind of what the mental health concerns are about that. And then I looked at, well, what's the prevalence of that. And globally it's over 70%. So I thought, what if one woman is dealing with three X greater risk for mental health concerns. She's already, and that's like before you even talk about how entrepreneurship is stressful. Now you're being an entrepreneur and it's very stressful. And we, you know, we, we all know about what that looks like. And then you have the fact that you're not getting paid as much. And then you have the fact that you're dealing with you know, trauma essentially, and not feeling safe and your hair's falling out and like the symptoms go on and on: depression, suicidal thoughts, et cetera. I thought, well, that's, you know, we need a solution for this. So I started writing a book and I was focused on writing a book. And then I attended a conference where one of the topics was how to pitch to venture capitalists. And I watched all these people pitch their apps. And I thought to myself, wouldn't it be easier if the solution was available on your phone and you wouldn't have to read an entire book? So then things started to happen really quickly after that, I came up with the concept and I signed up to a pitch at the beach in Tulum, Mexico. And from there I met one of my mentors and it just kind of snowballed from there. And then next thing you know, I'm running an app company <laugh>.
Taylor:
So you were an unexpected inventor.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
I think that that's neat that you saw the solution may be different now than it was before. For me, I think that some of the most beautiful companies come from people being very different from the last way that we used to solve problems. Like we used to value the problem solver, you know, whoever could solve problems was the most valuable person around. But now we could essentially crowdsource the solution to anything.
Laurel:
Yeah, exactly.
Taylor:
So we value the problem spotter. Someone who can see that a solution is available now, that wasn't available 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years ago. And it used to be books were the only ways to deliver these things. But when you take into consideration that 9 outta 10 people never read another non-fiction book once they leave, like education.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
How are you gonna get to them?
Laurel:
Exactly.
Taylor:
Hmm. Now when you are talking to the people that you see that it's their first time getting this from you, what are the exchanges like? So what do they come to you after you do speaking engagements and talk to you about?
Laurel:
A lot of the time folks say things like “thank you for giving me permission to have the struggles that I have.” One of the main reasons that I am so passionate about this is because I work with women all day long and they're ridiculously qualified. They have, you know, multiple degrees, they've done all the courses and certifications, you know, they're struggling between juggling work and life, work and home life. And they're doing a great job. They remember everyone's birthdays, they make it to yoga and they still don't think that they're good enough. And so by laying out some of the data that I've been able to uncover to show them how many systemic obstacles they're overcoming every single day they're basically outperforming their male counterparts. And so that is, that's sort of the joy that I have about talking about this.
So a lot of people come to me and they say, you know: “thank you for shedding a light on this. Thank you for normalizing it. Thank you for sharing your story,” because I think once, you know, a leader's vulnerable, it gives people permission to be vulnerable. And so since 2019, I've been openly talking about the fact that I'm in recovery from alcoholism. I'm 11 years sober right now. And like, I literally used to just like work and drink. That's all I did. And that's so normalized in entrepreneurial culture, that hustle culture and, you know, and then eventually it stopped working for me and I had to do something about it. And so to talk openly about my recovery, to talk openly about complex PTSD, and being a survivor of domestic violence. Those are things that I think a lot of people feel relief about because especially with social media is so prevalent. Everybody looks so good and we're only getting the highlights of life. So those are mostly the encounters that I get. Another piece is where people were unaware of how particular situations were affecting them. So just for example, if you are a woman on birth control and you've been on birth control for over seven years, your risk for suicide goes up by 30%. And a lot of women on birth control don't know that. And so being able to share this information and say, you know, this is a very simple change that you could make in your life that would increase your mental health and wellbeing and your ability to perform in your business.
Taylor:
Wow. So a lot of the time, maybe the pressure that people are feeling, they feel as though they're the problem. And they don't understand that the chemistry in their body has changed over time.
Laurel:
Yeah. And they don't understand the impacts of like systemic bias, you know, violence, harassment, wage gap, like all of these things that are not anyone's fault in particular, it's just how our system is set up. You know, we live in the patriarchy, we live in a situation where women couldn't get credit cards by themselves, like before 1974, you had to get a man cosign for you, you had to get your husband or your dad. So, you know, people think about, oh, that was like so long ago, but it's not, the after-effects are still here. So these systemic obstacles are still in effect today and we still have to overcome them and they do make things a lot harder. It makes it a lot more stressful. It makes it a lot more overwhelming to try to do more with less. And to have obstacles in the way that you know, our male counterparts simply don't experience.
Taylor:
That's interesting. How is that measured exactly? Like, when we're saying that there are people here that all have one disadvantage and don't have another like a group that doesn't. So you don't believe that. Do you believe that men have their own struggles or are they just the bench that we're comparing to?
Laurel:
No, I definitely think that to be a man would be really hard. I watch this. I really recommend anyone interested in the impacts of media on mental health: There's an organization called the Representation Project and they have two fantastic documentaries. One is called MISS- REPRESENTATION, and it talks about how women are affected by media stereotypes, and the other one is called THE MASK YOU LIVE IN, and that's about how men are affected by toxic masculine stereotypes. And one of the most shocking things in that video is about how they interview all these grade five kids in the states, and how basically young boys at about grade five stop feeling like it's okay to cry. And some of them can't cry ever again. And just like the effects of that. And the documentary correlates that to a lot of the shootings that we're seeing down in the states, just where it's not socially acceptable for men to have feelings. And I think that would be an absolutely atrocious way to live. It seems like a lot of pressure. So absolutely one of our goals is to release Resurgo for men. Just, I have lived experience being a woman, you know, it's easier for me to release it for women first, but certainly, I wanna be able to release it for men because certainly, you have your own struggles. It's just that they're different as well.
Taylor:
Yeah. Like, when we talk about the other side of the wage gap, we also talk about the responsibility to be a provider. And how maybe the wage gap wouldn't be as different if some men were not going so far beyond their capacity in order to get earnings. Because as much as competing with men as a whole -as a gender- is difficult, even the competition between men is very challenging.
Laurel:
Yeah, I would bet. You asked me earlier about where is the data to back up what I'm saying, and I just wanted to bring to your attention that in 2020 we released The State of Female Entrepreneur Mental Health, and it's the first study ever done on this particular topic. And what we did is we used the suicide risk assessment model, which basically looks at any human being’s protective factors and risk factors. So your protective factors are the fact that just for example, you have a supportive family, say you have a therapist, you have like shelter and money in the bank. Risk factors might be that you have a genetic predisposition to suicide, perhaps you have like, you know, a bad heroin problem. You know, so basically it's almost like a scale. So this is the measurement stick that is used by psychiatrists and, you know, mental health professionals to determine are you suicidal or not, and what do we do about that? So I really liked the notion of how simplified it was to break down risk factors versus protective factors. And so I started looking at entrepreneurship through that lens. So in the report, what we did is looked at first of all, how hard is it to be an entrepreneur? What are the risk factors and protective factors. Now, dr. Michael Freeman did a ton of the research on that, which, you know, I so credited him for, for laying the groundwork. But we found some other things that he hadn't uncovered or didn't factor in. He's also limited by being, you know, a professor, et cetera. Our study isn't. We didn't go through the steps to get it peer-reviewed because we'd have to spend another three years and I wanted it out in the marketplace as soon as possible.
However, so we looked at how hard is it to be an entrepreneur. Then we looked at how hard is it to be a woman and how hard is it then to be a female entrepreneur. So we looked at them in sort of three different stages. And of course, we have to compare it to men because that's the only sort of other benchmark out there. But we looked at over 200 different studies, both everything from peer-reviewed to very simple web polls and basically aggregated the data. And then it's been co-authored by a mental health professional, so it's not just myself. And that's where all the statistics are. And I wanted to be really sure about what I was saying, and really wanted to verify the experiences I was having and what I was seeing in my peers and in my friends even, and in my clients. I wanted to back it up with data. So we spent four years of research on this report. So if anyone's looking for, you know, where did Laurel come up with that? You can go download the report. It's free and it's about 60 pages. So it's not a light read by any stretch, but it'll give you a lot of data.
Taylor:
That's great information. I love the combination of data where we go out to the macro and then going right into like individual situations. Because I was looking at this as I always like to check to find out as much as I can see from the outside. And I'm one of those people who likes to get my news on social media because I think that how we react to things is actually more important than what's happening.
Laurel:
Agreed.
Taylor:
And so I was taking a look at the internet backward, meaning that most people go on the internet and search for solutions to their problems. But when you use the internet backward, you can actually use keywords to determine what the widest questions are, on the internet. Can I ask you a few questions that I was able to pull from basically the back of Google?
Laurel:
Yeah. I'm a little scared, but okay. <Laugh>,
Taylor:
You're super generous. So what would, when you consider mental health problems, would you say that they're common?
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
How common are they among the group that you're looking at?
Laurel:
For entrepreneurial women, the research shows it's 72% of women, entrepreneurs or other, are directly affected by mental illness in some way. And then I would say that looking at all the aggregate or other factors, other obstacles, it would be more than that. I don't have any way to determine what that number would look like. Unfortunately, I'm not a scientist, but I think it's more.
Taylor:
Yeah, that's great. And even 7 outta 10. So like, if you are a woman in entrepreneurship, this could be something that you check. You should, you can check in to measure it. Like you had mentioned, there are scales that you can use. Because it could be that you're too close to the survival side and not close enough to the thriving side, right? It's so slippery, It's hard to see. You touched on this previously, but how do you think mental health is affected by social media?
Laurel:
Well, I think, and also the research shows that it exacerbates any existing concern, and it may even give you a complex <laugh>. Yeah, social media is bad for your mental health, a hundred percent. All the research shows it. You know, in my own life that's how I feel, you know, I log off and I, you know, I don't feel particularly great. The blue light, even just the blue light can interrupt your sleep, which can then create depression. It's not great, and the fact that we're just seeing people's highlight reels. You have to be really, I think self-aware and you have to be really diligent about how you cultivate your feed, so it doesn't make you feel like crap. And yeah, social media addiction has gone through the roof, especially through the pandemic when it was all of us at home alone, just with our phones, you know?
Taylor:
Yeah, especially since everybody felt threatened. And sometimes we felt as though the threats were coming from the other people around us.
Laurel:
And, you know, and they, these organizations capitalize off it. There's just, watch a couple of documentaries on Facebook and you'll see how they capitalize off us feeling afraid or feeling depressed or feeling isolated. That's when they sell things to us. So it's their business model.
Taylor:
Yeah. Like actually the things that a lot of people don't understand is the reason that social media is free to you is because you are the product.
Laurel:
A hundred percent. And when you're the product, you gotta watch it.
Taylor:
You gotta totally watch it. Now you were just mentioning that you can curate your feed. What do you, can you unpack that a little bit?
Laurel:
Sure. Yeah. So I like to follow people that normalize things like body positivity. I don't wanna see just like basically the same body type in my feed. I wanna see a variety of body types because that's really what the world is made of. And that's really what will stop sort of like shame spiraling which, you know, which then results in like the billion dollar diet industry and, you know, health and fitness industry. So body positivity, I like to follow a lot of folks that follow a lot of humor, a lot of stand-up comics, things like that, because I think that, I too get my news from social media and just to try to balance out all the doom and gloom and like the sky's falling. I like to follow stand-up comedians. I like to follow people who curate memes that I find really funny.
I like to follow a lot of artists. Some folks do some… really just like artists are cool. They do interesting things. So I like to look at how different brains work. I follow a lot of folks who talk about mental health stuff, especially in clever ways. And in that way, I feel like when I check into my feed, it's more catered to what I'm interested in. But I had to do a lot of work to, you know, to tell the algorithm, like I don't want you to send me, you know, stuff about diets. I don't want you to send me stuff about yeah, just stuff that makes me feel, not great about who I am already. And I know I'm great. So I'm not the problem. <Laugh>
Taylor:
So basically just like the old saying goes, you are what you eat.
Laurel:
Oh yeah, that's a great way to think about it. Love that.
Taylor:
Yeah. So if you consume crap, you're probably gonna feel like crap.
Laurel:
A hundred percent.
Taylor:
Right? I'm surprised that there aren't more ladies murdering other people, cuz like I know my wife is so addicted to true crime. She loves it, right? Let's relax and watch some murder, you know? And these are things. Well, that's what I'm wondering, is that I don't understand it either. <Laugh> I like how you kind of unpack that to say like, why not teach these algorithms how to treat you? It's gonna take a little bit of effort, but you have to train yourself first.
Laurel:
Yeah. A hundred percent.
Taylor:
And I love your stand-up comics. I think that a lot of times people are just showing like us their highlight reel as you mentioned, whereas stand-up comedians are normally talking about those like awkward nuances of life. And they're bringing like the negative things in a way that we can almost like bite-sized.
Laurel:
Yeah. And it's relatable because we all have those awkward moments. We all have those moments where we feel like less than, or that perhaps we've made a mistake or we don't understand the people that we love or maybe we misspeak or we find ourselves in awkward situations. Like life is truly stranger than fiction. And I think that stand-up comedians and what they talk about is way better than any reality show or any scripted show, to be honest, because yeah, it's just, life is wild, It's really wild.
Taylor:
I totally agree. I actually tried stand-up comedy and this is what an attempt to like an attempt from me looks like. I literally booked myself three times a week for six weeks. Not having written anything.
Laurel:
Yeah. I know it.
Taylor:
And yeah. Oh yeah?
Laurel:
Then it'll make you do it. Yeah. Then you have to, right? It's in your calendar. You've gotta do it like the night before or whatever, but it's gotta get done.
Taylor:
I remember the first time I went out and I walked out onto stage and it was like, it went really well. My opening line caught everybody's attention. And then it went quickly through mediocre to awful. And I left the stage in crickets and I felt like I was just begging for them to turn that light on, which meant my time was up.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
And then as I got home from that, like the experience was so negative that I knew that I only had about 48 hours to write enough material to save myself from my next experience.
Laurel:
Getting back on the horse, right?
Taylor:
For weeks.
And that's something that, in the end I ended up having a 17th show that was awesome. And that's how long it took for me to even understand enough to like do it at all. So I really respect the people that do stand-up comedy, that figure that out, because I have to say being bad at it feels awful. <Laugh>
Laurel:
I cannot imagine.
Taylor:
I wonder what the mental health stats are there?
Laurel:
Pardon?
Taylor:
I wonder what the mental health stats are there.
Laurel:
Most comedians are horribly depressed.
Taylor:
Horribly depressed, addicted to a series of things.
Laurel:
Yes. Everything. Yeah.
Taylor:
Yeah. And it's weird because it ends up being the only thing that they describe as therapy.
Laurel:
Yeah, exactly.
Taylor:
Hmm. So you were talking about this a little bit before, and I wanna unpack this because this was another trending question.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
How can you self-evaluate your mental health?
Laurel:
Accurately? I don't know. I don't know that you can. I think. So what we did is we took the research report and we turned it into a series of questions that then you fill out and then you speak with a mental health professional about your answers, and it's all self-reported. So I think that I mean, yeah, it's the only way nobody can read your mind. Nobody can follow you around and see what you're doing all day every day. So I think a level of self-awareness is necessary to somewhat accurately report. But you know, even when you go to the doctor, it's self-reported, you're like, oh my knee hurts or, or whatever. So I think it's the only way. So yeah, I'd have to say yes.
Taylor:
That's interesting. I feel as though understanding enough to ask the question might be enough to go and talk to somebody about it, right? Or it might be enough to go to find some information, but the computer can be real dangerous here, because whatever you search, you're going to convince yourself that you have.
Laurel:
Yeah. You've got two days to live.
Taylor:
Yes. <laugh> doctor Google strikes again.
Laurel:
Web MD. Exactly.
Taylor:
<Laugh> Well, when you are measuring it, like, do you, where do you see the line of mental health to the point that it's actually a disability?
Laurel:
I think if it's impacting, I would say like something like the majority of the time if it's impacting your ability to live your life. So those are kind of the questions that are asked in like a suicide assessment risk intake form. And the same with our intake form is like, how often are you experiencing this stuff? So I think everybody's, I think it's normal to feel depressed. I think it's normal to feel isolated. I think it's normal to feel overwhelmed, stressed out. By normal, I mean, common, I don't think, you know, we have to live like this, but this is our society and this is kind of our baseline. But I think once it becomes a situation like just, you know, going back to my story, seeing that this is something that was going on for three weeks straight, I was like, okay, this is a problem because of how often it's happening.
And I think that's where you kind of have to make that call for yourself. Like, I think for me, I would say that my mental health stuff is probably down to somewhere between two and four days a month now. And I feel like that's more biologically related than anything. And given the amount of like personal growth and everything that I've done, I feel like this is as good as it's gonna get. And just based on my own, you know, my life experience, my chemical makeup, all that stuff. So for me, that's fine. And maybe for someone else that's not acceptable, I'm not sure. But I, I think, you know, if you're going like anywhere between 30 and over 30%, maybe to 70% of the time, you're not feeling great and you're having mental health stuff, I think it's time to take a look at it because I think there's enough tools and providers and things that we can do that nobody should have to live like that. We don't have to suffer. Not that much. I think a bit, cuz it's human, but not between 30 and, and 70% of the time. And you know, and that's a lot of I think that sort of stoicism and bravado and that sort of top it out and, and that grind culture and stuff, it's so normalized to just be suffering and sacrificing all the time. And I think like, that's just like, you know, a leftover from like old religious stories as well. Like we don't, you know, we don't have to live like that. So.
Taylor:
Yeah, that's something that is like part of competitive nature. You know, on the other side of that coin, some people see it as handcuffs, but a lot of people in business see themselves as like that's their opportunity to be almost like a business athlete. That grind culture is really embedded in like seeing what's possible. But I also agree that it doesn't sound very healthy.
Laurel:
Yeah. I think it's interesting to see what is possible for yourself. So for a while there, I was really into CrossFit and I kept, I was thinking like, what if? Like what if I fed myself properly and I rested appropriately and I did everything to optimize my body, what would I be capable of? And so I trained for a couple of years and I was able to do a 200-pound deadlift and a three-foot box jump. And I'm like: I'm basically a superhero. Yeah, no, it was pretty amazing. I was, I really impressed myself. And if I kept going, I probably could've done more. But you know I had a conversation with a naturopath who speaks and sort of thinks in terms of Chi or your life energy. And she said, you know, if you keep doing that, you're gonna take like 5, 10 years off your life. I'd never thought about that before, but she's like, you know like you're basically borrowing from your future self’s energy store. And I thought, oh, well I don't want that <laugh>, so I stopped. So I think it's, you know, you can see what's possible for yourself and you can push yourself so far, but there's, you know, the bill comes, you gotta pay the bill for that. And it's really personal on, you know, is it worth it or not to you?
Taylor:
Yeah.
Laurel:
It's not done for free.
Taylor:
It's so interesting where you get information. You know, you talk to someone who says you're depleting your future energy. You talk to someone else who says like the people that are in the 5% best shape actually do have longer lives. But maybe it's how they achieve that.
Laurel:
Yes, exactly. Like I don't need to be deadlifting 200 pounds, but I could deadlift maybe half that and, you know, find that sweet spot between hurting myself and, you know, ensuring that I'm living a healthy life and I've got good bone intensity and I'm staying off dementia.
Taylor:
Yeah. It was kind of weird how like sometimes when you catch somebody who's in that phase basically in the first five minutes of any conversation, they're gonna let you know that they do CrossFit. Or they're gonna let you know what their diet choice is, right?
Laurel:
CrossFit, vegans, and Burning Man. Those people will tell you in five minutes. Yeah. Especially if they do all three.
Taylor:
Well, I gotta say that maybe all three is a red flag. I'm not sure. But when you find those aspects, like I think that we all should have phases like that. I think that that is a healthy phase to just go deep on something, right? ‘Cause, it's a great source of community as well.
Laurel:
Yeah. I think as temporary as, and I think as entrepreneurs, we almost don't even have a choice. I think it's how we're built. Like I think that we get obsessed with problems. We get obsessed with fixing problems. We get obsessed with like a particular optimizing, particular metric for example, and you know, we go deep and the next thing you know is like, oh wow, it's been a couple of weeks, and I haven't really seen my friends kinda thing <Laugh>. So I think, you know, that's one of the reasons having community is so important. So someone will call you and say, hey, like what are you doing? I'm worried about you. You're hurting yourself, those types of things. So I think it's inevitable and unavoidable. I just think that you know, continuing to do that as your way of being is harmful. It was for me anyway, and for the folks that I surround myself with, we tend to try to stay a little bit more balanced as much as possible anyway.
Taylor:
Oh, that's interesting.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
I wanna ask this question and I think this might actually apply. So as somebody who is who has made it from a dark place to a brighter place. How would you describe what good mental health actually feels like?
Laurel:
Ooh, I love that question. Okay. So for me before I kind of went on my little journey, I felt very much like a floating head. I didn't really relate to my body very much. I didn't really. I couldn't really describe sensations in my body. I literally walked around for a week with a shattered thumb thinking: “I just had a sprain”, and I went to the hospital eventually and they put, they were like: “not only did you shatter your thumb and destroy your knuckle, you need surgery and we've gotta put you back together.” And I was like, huh, weird, didn't expect that. So prior to that, yeah, I felt, I think I was like pretty just disassociated. And so through my healing journey, I've kind of learned to identify like, okay, well, what does that feel like in my body? Like, oh, this is anxiety. Oh, this is depression. Oh, this is like dread in my gut kind of thing. And also just like deepening my own self-awareness. So before I used to have a lot of chatter in my head, a lot of like best way to describe it would be like four radio stations at once, and they were all like telling me I wasn't good enough in some way, shape or form-. It was incredibly debilitating in terms of trying to just like make it through the day and do, you know, things and accomplish things and whatnot. And so now I would say that I don't have any radio stations like that. And when they do flare up, I'm like, oh, something's wrong. So I would say day to day I have more, more often than not, I feel peaceful, I feel grateful, I feel well rested and energetic, I feel like excited to take on the day. I feel optimistic about my future. I feel like lighthearted and joyful and yeah, the opposite of that is the opposite of that, you know?
Taylor:
Yeah. I have to. I like how you touched on gratitude there. I start most of my meetings with what are you grateful for?
Laurel:
Beautiful.
Taylor:
And I find that it's a very good litmus test. It helps me check in on people. People that become much more general, much more distant from that question. And that lets me know that it's probably time to check-in. There's some other things that are there. Because I work in real estate and marketing, and it's often associated with that grind culture. Everybody's chasing something. And a lot of the time it's a collection of people that have had mental health damage that now almost like the bone knitted back stronger than it was where it was broken. They've turned these incredible deficits into like superpowers, right?
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
Like as a young person, I was rejected a lot, right? And now I'm in marketing in sales. Like I eat rejection. And it made me. It developed in immunity, right? I work in an industry where there's only 13% of us that make it over five years. And that's because it's not easy. And so for those people that are struggling with other challenges that enter into real estate, the big question becomes: do they have the capacity, right? And obviously with that failure rate we have to ask is like, the reason you're here because you kind of feel crazy? <Laugh>
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
So when somebody engages Resurgo, what's the path, am I saying that right?
Laurel:
Well, I'll let you in on a little secret Taylor. I'm trying to create the debate as passionate, as there is about JIF versus GIF. On like, how do we treat that G? <Laugh>. So I'm not gonna answer that question <Laugh>. So the path, thank you for asking that, so right now it's a web app. So you go to resurgo.app. Maybe I just gave it away how I said it, but the first time I heard it spoken publicly was a lovely man from Mexico who's announcing me to do my pitch. And he said: “RESURGO!”, and I feel like no one can ever beat that. But anyway, so you go to resrugo dot app, you click “join us”, and you pick your package. So one of the things I'm really proud of and I'm really, yeah, it just makes me feel so good, is that we have a really accessible pricing model because other female entrepreneurs have decided to pay more.
So that way people who don't have, you know, who are living on the poverty line, they can still access it. So you can choose your adventure. You can pick $15 a month, $25 a month, or 30, depending on what works for you. If your income's meeting your needs, exceeding your needs, or not meeting your needs. And then once you're in there you create your profile. We ask you to fill your intake form and that's kind of where we find out. So that's where all of the research that we've done has been turned into this intake form. And it spits you out with a number between 65 and 200, and that's your sustainability factor. And you get a personal performance plan, which basically looks at all of those factors: your lifestyle, your stress loads, your workloads, pre-existing mental health conditions. You know, where, what phase are you at in your business? How much money are you making? And we give you sort of a picture of like how well you're doing related to sort of everyone else, and kind of maybe what to look for, what to work on and some suggestions for where to engage in the app, and what resources might be most effective for you.
Taylor:
Wow. That's like an inspection, right?
Laurel:
It is an inspection, it is. It's like a, what do they say for your vehicle? Like a 71 point inspection or something? Yeah.
Taylor:
Yeah, yeah. They just make up a number, I’m from the car industry. They're like, is this number big enough? We're gonna do 55 points. And the mechanics: there aren't 55 points and they're like “make some”.
Laurel:
Find it. Yeah. Figure it out. <Laugh>
Taylor:
But that's really good because a lot of people don't even really know how to check, right? Like if we would've met you when you needed the most help like we might've just took you to a doctor and checked out your thumb. Like that was obviously the only problem, if you don't look at it holistically.
Laurel:
Exactly. And having a benchmark and then having a mental health professional to talk to after. So one of the things that I love as well that we've created is, you know, it's not one of those apps that you just download and you never talk to a person. Like, you know, you're talking to a licensed practical nurse within 24 hours. As long as you fill up that form and book that appointment with her. And she's gonna explain what we found in the intake form and why certain things might be things you wanna keep an eye on, and why certain things may be not, you know, within the realm of normal, or things that you want to keep doing, do less of et cetera. Because it can be really confusing to be, you know, receive information that goes against what your belief about yourself is. Like, I remember when I was still drinking and people were telling me that I had a problem and I was like, “well, I'm not an old man that lives under a bridge with a brown paper bag. So clearly I'm fine. Nothing's wrong.” And that was, you know, my idea, like as long as I'm not like that, then everything's okay. And to have, so it's really, you know, it's important to have support when you're sort of recalibrating what your identity of yourself is.
Taylor:
Yeah. Cause like that's the, a lot of it probably comes from where you've come from and what examples you had, right?
Laurel:
Yeah. Yeah, my life experience.
Taylor:
Mental health wasn't on the radar when I was a kid. You know, like your mental health was your job.
Laurel:
God, but we didn't even have the luxury of talking about it. It's like, you know, this generation, we are so lucky that we get to get to talk about our mental and emotional wellbeing. The generations before us are worried about like shelter, food, you know, not getting blown up by some bomb.
Taylor:
So we're moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
Laurel:
I'm becoming more neurotic every day.
Taylor:
Where we get past shelter, safety, security, but a lot of us kind of get off the boat. Like a lot of the things that entrepreneurs often choose is isolating. Like how many of them basically shorten their friend pool? Because they just have to say no so often. They work so much. Like really when we take a look at the statistics, if you have any entrepreneurs around you, this is something that you might wanna know because a lot of people don't know what they were going through during the pandemic. Cuz everybody was having hardship. How do you check in on others, right? Going in, in Canada, there was 3.5 million Canadian entrepreneurs. This is out of a population of 38 million. So one out of 10 people. So they're already kind of rare, right? And then during 2020, the number actually dropped below 1 million to 800,000. That's how many people lost their entrepreneurship and it's not losing your job. Lose your job, you might go get another job. There's some situations that that's really extreme in, but entrepreneurs actually lose the place that made the business and all the pieces that they made for that. Like that's what ends up going to essentially scrap when entrepreneurship fail. And small and mid-size businesses employ more than 10 million Canadians. So when we take a look at how business owners operate in the community, and what type of pressure that they can be under, it's normally not them that they're most concerned about. Like normally not themselves. I think at least the ones that are still in business.
Laurel:
Yeah. Agreed.
Taylor:
And that's because entrepreneurs have to actually work on average 70 hours a week to be successful.
Laurel:
Mm-Hmm
Taylor:
So when you're talking about your struggles, where you got an instant family, right? I'm really impressed by step-parents.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
Dad is a job, right? Mom is a job.
Laurel:
Yeah.
Taylor:
And to a mother or father, someone is an act. And so those people that step up into this situation, and you're saying that you know, when you average it out, the expectation is for this additional time, and you're already at 70 hours a week, you know?
Laurel:
That explains some things <laugh>.
Taylor:
But it also explains relationships. Because did you know everybody spells love the same way? T-I-M-E. And so when you're not able to feed those relationship’s time, you're actually not able to nurture the people that would save you when you went too far, right? Like lot of people think that teamwork is about having each other's backs. I don't think so. I work in entrepreneurship where people do crazy things, and what you really want from teammates is that they have your ankles, that they save you, yourself, right?
Laurel:
Beautiful. Yeah.
Taylor:
And that's something that I really hear from you, is, I want more people to check in on themselves. And you're trying to get this message loud. Like I know that you founded also, it's called the New Media?
Laurel:
Yeah. New Media Group. Yep.
Taylor:
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Laurel:
Yeah, sure. Gosh, The New Media Group. So I started in 2006. I was 23. I had been working in Calgary in sort of the web development and media field for three years already. I had been asked if my parents knew I was doing this. And so I wanted to create the largest, most behemoth-sounding name I could, to sort of increase the sort of validity of my brand. And I felt like I could also tell people that I had to check with my boss because yeah, I was a young woman working in Calgary and there was a lot of discrimination at the time. So yeah, the New Media Group, first of all, we started off doing websites, and within our first year, we got a majority market share in the real estate and construction market in Calgary, which was, at the time I didn't realize what a big deal that was, but it was a big deal. We were already doing six figures, first year in business. My background is also in sales, I was a telemarketer before, so I, yeah, I eat NO for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, does not phase me at all. And so then people started asking about this Google thing and they were like, how can I get on Google? And I was like, oh no, I don't know. So then I figured it out and then <laugh>, and then you know, got the new Media Group ranking, you know, highly on Google. And once I was able to do that, then I was offering optimization services for my clients. And then of course social media comes along and people are like, how do I do social media? And I'm like, oh no, I hope this goes away. And it didn't. And so I learned how to do that as well, and started offering that service to my clients. I think around 2008 I started doing a YouTube video a week, which I kind of regret giving up. But yeah, I still run that organization. We still do full-service online marketing services for clients who don't have the time, they don't wanna deal with it, they just want someone to kind of, you know, increase their presence, credibility, leads, visibility. Yeah, it's still going. And what I learned though, is that a lot of folks wanna learn how to do it themselves. So that's when I got into consulting was sort of teaching people, teaching teams, how to create their own communications plans, and marketing plans and then how to execute them internally. And I've been doing that as well for, I dunno, five years or something.
Taylor:
Wow. That's a cool example. The way that I see leadership is, the leader in any room is who consensus believes is help. So a lot of the time when somebody's just like, oh yeah, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out, and then I'll show you, right? When other people ask you, like, that's obviously a leadership movement. And it reminds me of this guy, there's a guy named Walter O'Brien and he's the sixth highest IQ ever tested.
Laurel:
Okay.
Taylor:
And he runs a business that will technically do any funded need. Meaning if you can pay for it, they will do it, at any level. And he employs 2,500 geniuses. But the business is called Scorpion Computer Services. Because as a kid, people were like, yeah, the computers are coming out, can you show me how to do this? And he just continued to do it to a scale that he can do anything.
Laurel:
Wow.
Taylor:
Yeah. So I like the approach there. I like how you were just like, oh, somebody needed this, so I made it. That's super cool.
Laurel:
Well, thanks for saying that. And you know, I didn't realize at the time, like how valuable of a skill that is, or how valuable of a mindset that is until, you know, fast forward many, many years later, and you know, you're trying to hire people and they don't have that mindset and it's incredibly hard to work with them. Or just learning sort of the experiences that clients have had working with other people. And then realizing like, oh, I guess I'm a little different. Hmm, that's cool.
Taylor:
That's something that really resonates with me. Like I remember when I was told I was different as a child, it meant broken, right? Or nonconformist. And then most of the people that tell me I'm broken right now, say it like I'm a freak. They're like: “you are broken. Like the way that you approach ideas is from this other angle, and how do you try all the doors and windows at once?” And that's the thing that I didn't realize, is like I was swimming in a school of fish and they were like, man, your funny colors, you got too many arms. And I'm like, oh, octopus, I am different. And that's something that you can embrace. It's not something that you need to level out.
Laurel:
Well, exactly. And going back to, you know, the correlation between mental illness and entrepreneurship. Like the research shows that it's an incredibly poor idea to become an entrepreneur. But we have this incredible vision backed by unshakeable optimism, that allows us to create something from nothing every single day. And I just am so amazed by. We're basically magicians, you know, and we're here grappling with all this like mental illness, all the obstacles. And you were mentioning about the difficulties through the pandemic. And you know, I know people know this, but I wanna highlight it. Like when your business fails, you don't get E.I., you don't get employment insurance. A lot of businesses that didn't have staff or structures weren't eligible for CERB. And like, we don't have like doctors here in Canada. You know, if you wanna get mental health support you have to pay like $150 an hour. So I just wanna highlight for people how precarious it can be. Like there is no structure to support entrepreneurs in Canada. And I don't think there is anywhere else in the world either. So when you go under, it's not just your business, it's like your entire being. And that's one of the things that I really want to, you know, continue to emphasize is that for entrepreneurs, like business is personal, it's deeply personal. And when our businesses aren't doing well, you know, it's often an indicator that we're not doing well. And so that's one of the reasons that, you know, Resurgo is so important to me, is to sort of stop siloing the business and the personal and bring it together and start treating people like they're holistic entities, and building up their own personal wellbeing so that they can go out and change the world and they can go out and function better and they can go out and perform at the highest levels without hurting themselves.
Taylor:
And that's like, I think that that's also something that is overlapping. Where entrepreneurs often have felt uncertainty at a very deep level their entire life. So the uncertainty here just feels fine.
Laurel:
Yeah. It's normal.
Taylor:
Yeah. But, well, it's normalized. But like, that's just like in the seventies, if you told somebody you were an entrepreneur that meant that you were unemployable <laugh>, you know? And now it's become this other side where I'm actually very confident that my two young girls are going to have a first gig before they ever have a first job.
Laurel:
I hope so.
Taylor:
Well, it means that things like Resurgo are even more important. And if you want more information on that, you can go to resurgo.app/research. And you can also be found at @resurgo.com on Instagram, as well as your name Laura Anne Stark on LinkedIn. Is that all the places that we can find you?
Laurel:
Yep. Absolutely. And I just wanna say it is resurgo.co the.com is taken, sadly. So, look for the dot co or the dot app.
Taylor:
Yeah. We'll definitely go to the place where you can find this. You can look this up and honestly like the world is asking if there's a way to self-evaluate. And the resurgo app is gonna help you check all the spots. Like if you need to have this type of conversation with the people around you, what a great way to open it up, is to check this out and see that there is a path. There's somebody who is here before you were. They were struggling with their family, with addiction, with their business. And it sounds like that's something that so many people or at least 72% of you should definitely do.
Laurel:
At least. Yeah. And I wanna say for all of the listeners, you can access your first month on me, just put in code VIP30 at the checkout, and you'll get a month for free.
Taylor:
Okay. So now, if you know an entrepreneur and you're like Hey, I just think you should check this out because I want your mental health to maintain, or I want you to be more aware of your mental health, or I noticed that you have a gym membership. Would you be open to contributing the same amount monthly towards your mental wellbeing? I really think that that's a good place for here. And I really, I deeply thank you for coming on and talking with us today.
Laurel:
Thank you so much for having me Taylor, it was a blast. I hope you have a great day and thanks for all the listeners for taking the time to listen. Appreciate it.
Taylor:
So now you can go and check out the Resurgo app. And if you use, what was the discount code?
Laurel:
VIP30
Taylor:
VIP30. Laurel Anne Stark is going to essentially pay for you to check in on your own wellbeing. So definitely go and do that. Thank you for coming in and talking with us today. Laurel Anne Stark is the founder of Resurgo and she's helping female entrepreneurs everywhere cope with the challenges that are unique to them. My name is Taylor, I'm a serial entrepreneur, but the marketing strategist @gravida and the host of Leadership Line of Sight. Thank you so much for joining us today, where we decode excellence and we help everyone find the leader within themselves.
