Building Bridges, Not Walls: How Karl Dakin Connects Investors with Purpose

Karl Dakin, “The Capital Coach,” joins to unpack the matchmaking dance between innovators and investors—and why readiness is key to funding. Then Nikki dives into real talk about mental health access without insurance, from clinics to telehealth, and why having a therapist matters more than perfection.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karldakin/ https://www.facebook.com/karl.dakin/ https://www.youtube.com/@MotivatedMoneyPodcast

[00:00:00] hi, I'm Carl Daikin and I have my own consulting company, Dakin Capital, and I call myself the Capital coach because I work with a lot of different groups, startup businesses.
Community projects, helping them find funding. I find myself as an intermediary between people who have money, who wanna put that money to work sometimes for just getting more money back or to address a social problem or cause, and those people will have innovations, those who are trying to bring a new product or service into the world, but they can't quite get it there without somebody else's money as added to the equation.
What I try to do is act as a matchmaker to try to bring these two together. And I recently found a metaphor that I thought has been working well where I referred to a middle school dance where the boys are on one side and the girls are on one side, the music's playing and nobody's coming to the middle floor to [00:01:00] dance.
So my goal, like the good, school administrator is to try to encourage both sides to come out onto the dance floor and work with each other. And sometimes that requires encouragement, sometimes incentives, whatever it takes to see what we can do to make the world a little bit a better place with the innovations that are out there.
And this is, an ongoing process. So it takes time to develop credibility, to determine alignment of interest. And I try to make all that happen.
Speaker 2: What is your favorite way to do that? 
Speaker 3: My favorite way is to take the opportunity the business or community project and to study it and then try to figure out who's gonna benefit from that the most. So a lot of times you'll see entrepreneurs pitching anybody that moves for some funding, some money, but the only thing they have to offer is [00:02:00] a return on investment, which turns out to be a single dimensional thing and it makes 'em open to competition with everybody else.
But if I can find somebody who has an additional benefit, they might be a supplier vendor to that entrepreneur where they're gonna get to sell more products. It could be a reseller, a distributor, retailer who gets to sell more products or services. It could be a social cause or a local government.
When we find those extra outcomes that give them that extra benefit, then we have more to talk about and we have a higher reason for them to work together to see if we can get something done. 
Speaker 2: So once you've connected the people, do you stay involved at all or to help with the next phase of getting it out to the people or. Are you not involved as soon as the A person meets the B person and they, connect? 
Speaker 3: Yeah [00:03:00] I'm not a broker so I don't stand in the middle and the investor looks to me and my reputation for what's going to happen.
They have to look to the actual project, the opportunity, and and in that regard it's almost like you need a diplomat and a translator to help both sides learn to talk to each other at the level they want to talk to. But where I particularly specialize is that most opportunities are not ready for funding.
They need to have some improvement or enhancement or addition or something. It may be a change of strategy or planning or management or go to market or something. And so I work to try to find out what that problem is to make 'em more fundable. Try to put that in place so I'm de-risking the opportunity to the investor.
And essentially what I'm trying to do is when they're out on the dance floor, I'm trying to get them to, approach each other where they're more on common [00:04:00] ground and it's easier to get something done. 
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. A techie, talking to an executive is always a fun conversation to listen to.
Speaker 3: A techie loves to talk about their invention, how it works. They'll go for long time explaining the intricacies of what they're doing and how they're doing it better. But I've found that the investor wants to talk about outcomes, which it gets back to their exit. How do they get their money back?
What kind of benefits are they going to realize? And this is where the translator comes in, you have to take something that's technical, convert it to a business model, convert it to an outcome, and then with that point, we can have a conversation.
Speaker 2: So do you have a favorite story that you like to tell ? 
Speaker 3: I have lots of stories. We have [00:05:00] stories that are humorous. We have stories that make you cry. We have stories in between where just when you think everything is going to work something goes wrong and you go off the road and you don't know if you're ever gonna get back on the road.
Yeah. Every day is a new adventure for me where I'm talking with someone. As an example this morning about a patriotic film that they wanna bring into the market next year in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States. It's a revolutionary war hero and we're talking about it and they're telling me how great it is.
I asked him the question, I said what about everybody else who's bringing forward a revolutionary era film for next year? And he goes I don't know of anybody else that's doing it. And I said Ken Burns is just making an announcement of a whole suite of films. And then I started rattling off everybody I knew, and I'm not like [00:06:00] the point of person who knows everything that's going on in the industry, but I knew half a dozen other films some of the Revolutionary War, someone Gettysburg some on other things.
And I said, what about those? And the guys just looked at me like. Really, 
Speaker 4: he just kicked his puppy. That was not very enough. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I have had, I remember one occasion I was explaining to someone what I thought they should be doing instead of what they told me they were going to do. The guy stopped me.
He says more about my business than I do. And I said, yeah. And that's unfortunately a very sad Fed said statement, because you need to be the world's expert on your own business. And in many cases, you may know everything in the world about the technology, but if you don't understand the markets and everything else that goes into the 360 degree view of a business, then you're not ready.
And you, and when you pitch to somebody with money, they're gonna see that and they're gonna go, I'm gonna go somewhere else.[00:07:00] 
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's some people who can't, listen to. Anything that's outside their beliefs? 
Speaker 3: I view it more as a competency issue where I don't expect say a quarterback for a football team necessarily to understand how to play safety or wide receiver or something. And they have their skill sets.
And unfortunately a lot of inventors, once they come up with the idea, they may have made their last valuable contribution to that concept. And it's important to get them to recognize that, to step out of the way and let other people with other skills, other experiences, step up and do their best job to move it to market.
And it's hard because it's their baby. One of my friends used to start off a story with and of course your baby may be ugly [00:08:00] as a way of trying to get them to step back and take a more objective look at what they're doing. 
Speaker 2: Yeah. My sister sent me a picture of one of her babies and it looked like a troll.
I was just I don't know what you're doing, but it can't be mean. I have to say it's a beautiful baby. 
Speaker 3: You hope they just grow out of it. 
Speaker 2: They did. They definitely did. But yeah, that baby looked like a troll and I'm sitting there going, okay, I have to say something nice. What do I say?
Something nice. Ooh, this is hard. 
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a happy baby. 
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I said something along those lines they look very happy. They have a very pretty smile. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's a good starting point.
Speaker 2: So
how do [00:09:00] you find the people to put on the dance floor at the beginning?
Speaker 3: Yeah, early in my career I made a point of trying to be more visible particularly with entrepreneurs and inventors. I got to meet a lot of opportunities by showing up and making short presentations through the SBA on topics of contracts and intellectual property management and so forth.
And that same routine has followed me through four and a half decades of doing this work. Where I just keep it, trying to make myself visible to those who want my kind of a service. So I now do a daily newsletter Monday through Friday. I have my own livestream show that I do once a week.
I offer to appear on podcasts like this one where I get to meet new people and tell a little bit about what I'm doing. And then I'm a member of a number of small business, economic and industrial groups who [00:10:00] all have this shared vision. So I now get a regular stream of people coming in all the time asking, if I can be of help and raising them funding.
And some I can and some I can't and some we still don't know.
Speaker 2: So on the ones you still don't know, is that because they don't know what their. Offer is, or what their product is, they're still trying to put that together so you can't know what you're doing. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sometimes somebody will come up with an idea to solve a particular problem, and it may appear to them to be the end all answer to everything in the world a panacea type solution.
And yet it may turn out that their particular need that they were trying to address is not really one that aligns with the market, or it may be their market is small compared to a larger market that's somewhere else. And they, [00:11:00] and yet they have a hard time articulating what it is that they have putting it into a value proposition that either the customer can understand somebody in the supply chain or an investor if they're standing outside and watching this objectively.
And so when they come to me, sometimes even I, despite all the industries I've worked with I'm like, I'm still not getting it. I'm still not seeing the great value that you're proposing here. Then we have to circle around and we may beat it up for a while, going back and forth or can I do this?
Can I do that? To see if we can find something where it seems like there's a viable business enterprise that can be set up. 
Speaker 2: Okay. So when you're doing that, do you work with a clear leader all of the time, some of the time or none of the time? 
Speaker 3: By clear leader, could you define that for me? Nikki, 
Speaker 2: the person who knows what they're [00:12:00] doing on their side and can communicate at least what they're doing to you.
Speaker 3: It depends upon the opportunity that what we commonly see is you'll have somebody come up with an idea that we may call it a creative or an inventor, and along the path they may have picked up a partner who's a business person. If they haven't, then, which just a greater challenge to try to figure out what they've got and where it works.
But even where I may think it's going to work, we still have to do some market testing, get some feedback to, to see if my guess on where to go to market is correct. And so there's a lot of different things that we may work on to test the market, do surveys put prototypes or demos in front of people to get their feedback and see how they react if they have a business person, that may generally improve the situation, but not always.
The business person may be a little bit of a gatekeeper. They [00:13:00] may themselves not have the experience. They may be a second cousin who's never done anything before except try to calm down the inventor to keep them focused on something. So it is a mixed bag, but if they get up into a full team where they're now talking a sales person, maybe a CFO, now we're getting more professional, we're getting more in gear.
They may already be in operation for one to three years. And that's where it is much easier to work with them because now we're talking to an actual operating business that just needs to grow up. 
Speaker 2: So on the other side, the investors, the ones that are looking to spend money on stuff. Do they always know what they want to spend money on or do they give you just look, I wanna be able to do this to a charitable type thing, or I wanna do this for a business that is in this spot, maybe.
Or [00:14:00] some of them just go, yeah, look, I got a lot of money and I need you to spend some of it so I don't have to pay that much in taxes. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a great question because all of us, including myself early in my career, tended to think that people with money were intelligent, knowing what they wanted to do, had a clear sight of their, where they wanted to go.
And that is so far from the truth that I had to make major adjustments to the point where now when I encounter somebody who has money. Who is talking about investment, I start at ground zero. And we ask 'em, what is your goal? And often it's a vague and ambiguous response.
And then we say, what are the jokes I tell is I ask 'em what they did last weekend and they look at me funny, and they go one group will tell you they were out on their speedboat and they're racing around the lake all weekend. And I go, okay, I'm gonna put you in [00:15:00] category over here.
And the other one go, no I was working down at the soup kitchen. I was legally soup out to the homeless. I go, okay, I'm gonna put you in a different group over here. But for the most part they have a very vague a I'll note when I see it, which is very hard to work with. And so you get out your flashcards and you throw up a card. Does this look right? Does this look right? Does this look right? And they may zero in on something, then you have to ask 'em even more questions. Some people have hired professionals to help them. Wealth managers, accountants, attorneys and unfortunately these people, although they're good people and they're very knowledgeable in their subject, they may not be able to look at something that's not ready for funding, which is where we find ourselves a lot of time where the guy says, Hey, I really this deal.
I go that deal's not ready for funding. They go, yeah, but it looks good. I go, yeah, but they don't have a good management team, or they haven't thought through their sales program, or they've got 200 competitors. People come to me all [00:16:00] the time with a new sports drink, or vitamin drink or new drink.
And I'm going, how are you going to carve out a position, a market that's so already overcrowded with, a dozen coming in every week or month? Yeah. To this marketplace. And they're like my stuff is so good. I don't have to worry about that. And that's that leads to the problem of people overthinking the value of their deal.
Sometimes it's naivete, sometimes it's arrogance. More often it's arrogance that, oh, my deal's so good, I don't have to worry about it. Everybody's gonna beat a path to my door and it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: I could see that. Some people get their money because somebody else made it and they inherited it. So they come to the table just like me and are like, okay. They said I need to spend some money. 
Speaker 3: And if somebody [00:17:00] has a big pot of money, and I've been fortunate to be introduced to some ultra high net worth people over the last several months and you realize that it's actually a great challenge for them to put their money to work in a way that won't lose their money, that's going to make them feel good and so forth.
And in fact, what a lot of these people and it's hard to understand from somebody who has no money, but these people can afford anything that's off the shelf. So if they can go to the local store, dial a broker they can buy it 'cause they can afford it. So what do you buy for the guy or gal who has everything that really becomes the question.
So at that point then we're saying I can try to find something unique. I can try to find something that's an immersive experience, something that you can talk about to your friends. And this ends up being a very narrow type of niche [00:18:00] to find that. So a new technology or innovation may fit all these criteria.
They go look, I'm supporting this new cure for cancer. Everybody's gonna feel good about themselves. They may make some money off of it and it's all good. But if you walk in and go, I wanna show you a new car wash that may not get out of bed in the morning, and it may not get the funding you're looking for.
We're providing services to investors that kind of help them look at deals, put their toe in the water without a whole lot of money investment, but still get closer to the other side of talking to the people with the ideas where they can see if this is really meaningful, if it's viable, if they feel good about it and whether they wanna back it or not.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like a circus. 
Speaker 3: A multi circus would be a good description. We have clowns over here. We have the lions over here. We have [00:19:00] somebody playing the band maybe so loud. You can't hear yourself talk. That sounds pretty much like every day. 
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just, I think that it's very good for us to have a marketplace where people can come together with new ideas. Basically when we talk about an entrepreneur is not a person who sees a glass is half full or half empty, but it's the wrong size glass.
And in that regard entrepreneurs get up every morning going, this could be better. There was once actually a survey in Forbes Magazine on whether you were an entrepreneur or not, and it was pretty hilarious 'cause they had all these strange questions and I was trying to take this thing as myself as an entrepreneur.
And the 20th question was, could you design this survey form better? And I checked the box yes. And realized the whole thing was a joke because every entrepreneur would check that same box the way I did. [00:20:00] 
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Saying of course I can make it better. That's my whole purpose in life. 
And so I think it's good to have people out there willing to go at risk, willing to, put blood, sweat, and tears into bringing new stuff to market. It's unfortunate. Most of 'em don't know how to do that and don't have the business skill or experience or maybe just, outright talent to make that happen.
But that's what makes for the circus. So we're constantly trying to make the world a better place, but you have to go through all these hoops. You have to play by certain rules whether you want to or not, to bring things to market. And if you do though you can make a living you might get rich.
But we try to avoid that as an outcome 'cause it's not as likely as people would want it to be. And and along the way every product or service they bring to market may enrich somebody's lives somewhere, may save lives may make things ever so much better.
Speaker 5: Hey everyone. Thanks for sticking with us. Before we dive into our [00:21:00] next topic, I just wanna take a quick moment to remind you two who like this video, subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell. That way you'll always be the first to know when a new episode drops and we want to hear from you.
What topics are you most excited about? Drop your thoughts in. The comments below. Your feedback helps us create content that you love. We've got some exciting stuff coming your way, so don't miss out. Now let's switch gears and jump into our next discussion. I.
Speaker 2: We are going to talk about different ways to get help with your mental health if you do not have insurance. Because it is my philosophy that everybody needs to be in therapy even if you're normal, right?
Even if you don't have any mental health issues because there are some stuff that's just hard to deal with. Even if you think you're dealing with it, you may not be, could be causing ulcers in your stomach. How [00:22:00] many people do that? So therapy helps people, it changes lives and it changes.
You usually for the better if you have a good therapist. Now, I'm not talking about the therapist that screw their clients in multiple ways, or the therapist who are just bad therapist. I'm talking about good therapist. Or after being diagnosed with something, getting the medicine that you need to actually be stable.
Because being crazy is only fun if you're talking about somebody else, not yourself or not something you've done. Bottom tier for, so for mental health, you have the community mental health people. So when I was in Tennessee, they had a community thing that was a three county, three counties went to this one mental health building.
I gotta say, you have to have some patience if you're going [00:23:00] to do that. And if you need to do that, do it anyway. Even if you don't have the patience, just don't act like a fool 'cause they can't arrest you. But they were constantly late, running behind. So if you had a 15 minute appointment at three, you might still be sitting there at six.
So there are drawbacks to doing the community mental health, but if you need mental health care and that's the only option available because of the cost of mental health, then do that because always better to be on your meds and taking them properly than it is to be off them.
Usually those community places also have either inside them a three day stay or they can connect you to where the three day stay is in your area. Three day stays don't have to be, oh, I want to, leave this earth. It could be that you just [00:24:00] moved into a state and you have to figure out where all the services are because nobody's going to fill your prescriptions.
All of a sudden. Being in a three day stay you'll get prescriptions that will last you in that area until you can get switched over. Because what I found when I moved from, like Maryland to Texas, or Texas to Maryland the, I got a prescription, I got a paper prescription to be sure that it could be covered, but the pharmacy didn't wanna cover it because it wasn't from a Texas pharmacy or it wasn't from an Arkansas pharmacy or doctor.
I ended up off my meds for a while and that was very dangerous for me in multiple ways. I am, I have psoriasis, I'm on shots to be clear from psoriasis because I am not clear like this without a shot. And that little screw up between Maryland and [00:25:00] Texas meant that I went back to 85% covered and massively inflamed.
So going without my meds is not an option. We finally got me back and when we moved from Texas to Arkansas, we did it so much better and so much faster to make sure that I was gonna be fine with the medicine transfers and stuff because it was bad. So I know currently with my current therapist, if there is a day where I can't go into therapy because I'm not feeling good and I don't wanna get her sick, or my ride is in another state for the day or the week I know that I can text her and she'll be like, do you wanna do telehealth?
And so we do. We'll do that. It's a secure platform where you can talk to your therapist. One of my biggest pieces of advice for somebody who has mental health, when you move [00:26:00] into an area, search mental health in my area, right? Easiest little search thing there is, and it'll pop up a whole bunch of different options.
Pick one at random. It could be the first one, it could be the middle one. I don't care. Any me mighty mow it. Call them and be like. I am switching over this type of insurance, or I don't have any insurance. But I need help figuring out where to go to get started to get, mental health help.
Every single one of the places near you will help you do that, as long as they just haven't dealt with somebody who's trying to come through the window. They might be a bit testy some days, but usually if you can get ahold of a person on those lines, they will help you. The per first place doesn't actually have a person you can talk to because it does one of those things where you scroll through, okay, pit number one for this, number [00:27:00] two, that, and then it never actually gets to a point where you could talk to somebody.
It's just leave a message, call a different place. You might get a different option. Okay. Some therapists do a sliding scale. To make it more affordable. That one depends on how much they're dependent on insurance money, because insurance won't let them charge more for people on insurance than they do for the people off insurance.
So that's that. The last option, and I would not recommend it, really would not recommend it are free clinics. And there's a reason why I don't recommend them for mental health. If you have a health emergency and you need to go to a free clinic, go to a free clinic, totally worth it. But for your mental health, [00:28:00] free clinics and mental health don't usually go well together.
You may end up stuck somewhere that you didn't intend to be because you were in an emergency situation. So I don't really recommend that. I know that in my therapist office sometimes has interns and I think if you're not on insurance and you allow an intern to go into the meeting with you, there might be a like a bonus so that, you get so much off of your visit for letting them be in there with you.
And you've got nami national Alliance for On Mental Illness. It has a hotline, which I will have down below in the little Gold Park. So that if you are having one of those bad days where you're let, you've spiraled out and your mental health is in a crisis mode call them [00:29:00] and they will have somebody who can help you start to come out of that spiral.
The biggest thing if you are in a humongous spiral and you feel like you may do something stupid, there's always the emergency room. Because nobody wants anybody to do anything stupid.
So for me, my philosophy on mental health being that if you have a problem, you need to work on it. And you need to make sure you know who you are and how you react to things. And you get that help by having a therapist. I have two of them. There's nothing to be ashamed of by having a therapist.
Do you have anything to add? 
Speaker 3: I was just gonna ask you're talking about therapists, in a [00:30:00] consulting role. Do you recommend working with groups like alcoholics Anonymous or other group type sessions session as opposed to hiring a professional? 
Speaker 2: My personal opinion is I don't feel that groups work as much as people think that they do, because everybody's trying to one up the next one.
Oh, if they've been sober for 30 days, then I have to do it for 60 days, which I guess can be good, right? 'cause now you're being sober, but you're being competitive in a situation that isn't a competition with other people. It's a competition with yourself. And I have been forced in group situations by minimizing things that I've gone through to help somebody else.
And group situations for me are sketchy, but if it's something that actually works for you and that you will stick with and get the help you need from that, then sure, go. They [00:31:00] can help. There's Alcoholics Anonymous. There's Anon, which is for siblings and parents of people who are alcoholics.
There is the, there's a addicts Anonymous where they are addicted to different substances and are trying to get clean. 
Speaker 3: Yeah we've often joked that maybe there should be an Entrepreneurs Anonymous program for entrepreneurs who maybe were cut out the right cloth to be their own self-employed business person.
But do you also recommend using any of the online matching services to find a therapist? 
Speaker 2: I would do some research on them. If we remember a couple years ago, everybody and their brother was talking about, I think it was Better health and they ended up having really bad problems with keeping their client list protected, even though that's a HIPAA thing to have.
And because they were [00:32:00] partnered with. Influencers, there was a bunch of backlash for that. So make sure that you're looking into any app or whatever that says that they match you with the therapist to make sure that their list is something that is HIPAA approved. And make sure that, once you're in it, always, if you're talking to someone and you don't feel safe, that's time to get a different therapist.
Or even if you just don't like somebody. I was told, I had a therapist. I talked to her for one time. She's one of those people who had her nose up in the air the whole time we were talking and I was just like, I ain't talking to this person ever again. And I walked out and walked up to the counter and was like, no.
So getting a new therapist, you might have to jump through a hoop or two because sometimes management wants to know why you don't like the therapist. They usually don't appreciate [00:33:00] very much when your answer is because there's stuck up somebody's butt. But, be as honest as you can be because it's necessary feedback and then go to the new therapist and keep on trucking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw a pitch a couple months ago for an ai, artificial intelligence assisted for people who had suffered abuse. And immediate response in seeing what they were doing was that they were not protecting any of the conversations which meant that if there were later legal issues, the entire conversation would be fully discoverable in whatever was going to happen.
And it would also be, look like it could potentially be viewed by others, which would open the door to all kinds of other problems. 
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. To be careful about making sure that your person has that list. And also, please don't talk to ai. Okay. Look, [00:34:00] we talked to AI all day for our jobs, some of us anyway.
I know I do for different, things that I use AI for. There is no way in anybody's mind that I'm gonna start typing to ai, look, this is the mental health stuff I've been dealing with my entire life. What do you think about it? Because dude ain't gonna know nothing. That's not protected. 
Speaker 3: Beyond that AI is not a live person.
It's not even a digital sentient being. What it's giving you and I deal with this all the time, is it's giving you consensus information, which is like the average of averages of information. And you as an individual no matter how much your situation may mirror other people, you're still unique and you need a unique treatment or assistance or support.
Hey, I can't give you that. At the most it, it might help you find a therapist that after some point you, [00:35:00] it's not gonna do you any good. 
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't recommend telling AI your deepest, most innermost thoughts because ai first of all, cannot tell if you're dark innermost thought is a dark humor joke or if it is something you're actually going to do.
Because I tell people all day long that I wanna throw punch somebody else. I have never actually done it, would never actually do it. And it's just one of those release valve things when I'm frustrated Oh, a thing. But like a, I wouldn't know that AI gonna call the cops on me. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. The there's a lot about expressing your emotions and when I was growing up, we tend to use all kinds of things.
Statements like I'll kill you, I'll smash you, I'll do something that, which are all politically incorrect today. Plus they, I don't know if they have any more meaning than they [00:36:00] did when I was younger, but people don't like to hear that. And yes, an ai cannot interpret. And as an entrepreneur I often preach that every entrepreneur should embrace dark humor as a way to, to survive.
Being an entrepreneur and some of the dark humor can get very dark. 
Speaker: Yeah. 
Speaker 3: It's a good way to express oneself, but as you said, it doesn't necessarily translate to taking a improper action against somebody. And an AI would not necessarily be able to tell the difference and whatever action they took might not be the right one.
So it is all kinds of issues with AI today. There's limits on what it can do and where it can help. And this is one where I would err on the side of caution to say other than getting directions to the local pharmacy about as far as what we wanna push [00:37:00] it. 
Speaker 2: Also my therapist doesn't take notes during my sessions.
I prefer that they don't take notes because if they have a lot, she could take some notes afterwards, obviously, and she probably does so that she can remember something that happened that day in case it's asked later. But they're not specific enough, things that it could catch me up later because, and no recordings of it, of my, nope, because like I said, I will say I'm gonna throw punch somebody.
I am not actually going to throw put somebody and if anybody got the, and my therapist knows my humor, so there is plenty of other things that I say. The therapy session there probably wouldn't be okay in a lot of other situations. Not only that, but. My personal information, my story of who I am and how I got to be.
The way I am is not for people to listen [00:38:00] to who have not talked to me and know me and understand, you know me now. And then they listen to no thank you, no recordings of me, but I'll let a new, an intern in the room every single time. 'cause I don't care. Sure, you wanna come in the room, you're about to learn.
And if I'm on a rare day, I'm like don't never do this, don't do that. But
know yourself, know what you're comfortable with because I know I am not having therapy with a dude. Not gonna happen. I am not getting enclosed into a room with a dude. For an hour. Nope. No, thank you. That doesn't make me feel safe.
On the other hand, some people may go I'm not getting stuck in a room with a female for an hour. That doesn't make me feel safe. So make sure you know yourself in that regard so [00:39:00] that you know whether to ask for a female or a male because it matters. And if you're okay with a dude, ask for a dude because there are way too many people who are only okay with a female.
So there are very few male therapists that actually survive. 
Speaker 3: I think that gets to the point that you want good quality, but you also need to feel comfortable if you're not feeling safe then. The therapy is probably not gonna be nearly as effective as you want it to be. 
Speaker 2: 'Cause you have to, when you're in therapy.
Look, I have had joking conversations with some people around me who don't understand what it is to be depressed, who don't understand what it is to go and work with a therapist. Joking conversations where they're like, if you need help with your therapist today, call me. And I can joke with them, that's fine.
But when you're in that office and you're talking with that, usually it's not fun [00:40:00] every once in a while if it's your birthday, 'cause I know this year it's gonna be my birthday, one of the times I go, why not? You can have just a general conversation, but a lot of the times you're going, look, I'm having a really bad couple of days.
And either a, I don't remember. I don't know why there's no situation happening right now. I should be fine, but I'm not. So what's going on? And then you start trailing back. Okay. So what in your past has happened during this point in time? Oh, you got told you were moving to another state and it was your fault and everybody was mad at you.
Maybe that's why your body remembers trauma. It will pull that crap out of nowhere long after you're like, oh yeah, I'm over it. It's a fun thing some days to be like stressing over something [00:41:00] that you didn't even remember until you were going, okay, let's go back. Nymo Mo did it this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is always interesting how a memory of something that's in the far past that has almost no chance of repeating itself. Can still influence, how you see something today. I was in a discussion with a group last week where they were doing a survey of investment profiles and one of the questions was if you had a really bad investment in the past, is that going to influence your decision in the future?
And I said, absolutely. Even though that particular investment may be, non repeatable, it may be something that was just a weird place in time or a weird market, change or any number of things. And yet it still, it makes that part of who you are and it's going to influence how you make decisions going forward for good or for bad.
Speaker 2: [00:42:00] Yeah. And not only that, but 20 years from that time, you could be having a normal Tuesday and all of a sudden you have an anxiety attack because why the crap not. It is just that time of year again. And for some reason this time I'm having a heart failure because I had an investment that failed 20 years.
That's what gets me. It's not so much that, there are some days that I have that are bad that I know for a fact are gonna be bad because they're bad, right? It gets me are those random Tuesdays when all of a sudden my anxiety hits the roof and I'm like, what the crap is this? What the, everything's fine.
I'm working on all my stuff. I'm not behind on anything. I'm doing really good. Why am I all of a sudden about to have the biggest panic attack that I've had in a couple of years? And then [00:43:00] you talk with somebody and you talk and it takes a minute, right? It's not oh, yeah.
That's what it is. No, it takes a minute of kind of having a conversation and then going, oh, this is March 23rd. I don't even know how long ago it was. We moved from Boston to Maryland and my mom told me it was my fault. We were moving because of me, and I didn't even wanna move. So it just made the move stupid.
And now she just done a random day in March. My heart complication started and I'm like, circle around. And it's because of that. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's kinda like a confluence of the planets when they all line up. Strange things may happen or as you say, it triggers a memory. And we all, remember the first this or the first [00:44:00] that.
And that's a good thing, but it can also remind you of bad things and and then when you least expect it, as you say, it pops up and you're going, why am I not on track today? Why am I off the rails? Can't focus, can't get moving. And as you say, then you kinda work backwards, reverse engineer your day.
You're going, oh, that happened and that happened. That's a rare configuration and it really doesn't mean anything. Yeah, you're right, Josh. Yes it does. 
Speaker 2: Yes it does. I have to do this. I have to be, you're I don't know if you've seen it, but they have that movie El Canto, where it's a Spanish house that is magical or something, but one of the people in this movie, they give him kids.
Okay? One of the kids, Pete gets a hold of coffee. He does. And then he can do super fast stuff. And some days my anxiety does that. I don't drink coffee 'cause that's disgusting. [00:45:00] Caffeine doesn't affect me like that. But all of a sudden I'll just be here, sitting here and all of a sudden my anxiety is off and running and I'm just sitting here going, I was calm a second ago.
I didn't even talk to anybody with the crap is
whatcha doing? So we all have days. We all have moments. And that's where I'm like, have a therapist. You don't have to go to the therapist every week like I do. I have a whole lot of crap I have to deal with, right? So I go once a week. You may need to go once a month to just check in and make sure that the situations you have gone through aren't marking you in a way that is permanent.
Speaker: Right, 
Speaker 2: or maybe once every couple months to make sure the things that you're doing or whatever, or so that you have that lifeline of reaching out and saying, [00:46:00] Hey I need a telehealth appointment with you because I don't know why, but today I'm not. Okay. And then you do that and you figure out why you're spazzing and you fix it.
So that's why I think everybody should have one, because I think everybody has those moments where they're like, why anxiety off to the race without me, and I don't understand what's happening. You just get slapped in the face by a
divorces. Life changes. Everything changes. I hate change. I am the first one to tell you I hate change. I will put it off as much as I have to because I hate it. When it comes to personal life choices in business, I can deal with change all day long. I could deal with a lot of things in business that I cannot deal with in my personal life at all.
It is a weird thing. I [00:47:00] know it's weird. I can't understand it. I can't explain it, like just let it go. But like my personal life can be a hot mess and my business life is still perfectly fine because I am like, no, I have to hold the line or everything's gonna fall apart and that wouldn't be good.
Everybody has that though. 
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you, that business is, you can deal with more change 'cause you feel like you're more in control, that you're the, I would call it the actor or the proactive person. That is making the change. So you feel like I'm in, I got this. Where on the other side, your personal life, you may feel like you're trying to hold on to stuff and everybody else is in control and you're just reactive.
And then to me, that would be my guess as a non therapist that yeah, there's things people go, how can you enter into that business deal? And I go I understand all the [00:48:00] risk. I know where all the players are. I know where things at. And they're going like, that is crazy. I can't believe anybody would do it.
And I go, no, it's not. It'd be like walking a tightrope, between two high-rise buildings. I could never do that. But the guys who do the tightrope, they go, yeah, it's no big deal. As long as the wind's not gusting, I can make this happen all day long. 
Speaker: Yeah. 
Speaker 3: But you get to a point where you're going like, I'm not in control of anything.
That is a scary position to, to feel like. You're sitting there just taking the punches and hoping everything turns out okay. That's no fun at all. 
Speaker 2: No, and it's not a place you need to be in. There is help. There are people out there that can help because a lot of times when somebody all of a sudden goes through something, let's say you have a normal life.
Your life has always been normal. Your parents were together and whatever. Everything was normal. And then your wife cheats on you, and you have to go through a divorce[00:49:00] 
before you do anything stupid, such as hurting somebody else or yourself. Go talk to a therapist, work through it, get the anger out, punch a wall. Punching walls is way more appropriate than punching people. So punch a wall, get your anger out. Go lift weights or something. I don't know your health. Go do something.
And then once you've gotten it all worked out in your head, you're in a way better spot and you're not gonna do the stupid. 
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it it's better to be in a calm place with making decisions then feeling like you have to make an emergency reaction to something and 'cause you tend to make poor choices and you feel like you have less choices to make, which contributes to making poor choices.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. 
Speaker 3: I like to keep my options open and when we put deals together, I say, what's your plan B? [00:50:00] And most entrepreneurs don't have one. I go not only plan B, but you have a C, D, E, and F plan because the world may not cooperate the way you want it to. And if I have a number of layers of reactions based upon what hits me, then I feel like I'm more in control.
'Cause I'm already thinking forward and thinking around and either avoiding or mitigating the downside. And it seems a little bit like getting so many steps into a chess game where I go, okay, I, I've thought through most of this we've narrowed down everything to, stuff short of terrorism, which on nine 11 caused all kinds of anguish because we had not anticipated that as a potential cause of business failure.
And we were in a little bit of a panic mode for over a week. Not to mention we couldn't fly anywhere. As we were trying to go, how's this going to work? How's people gonna react to this good, bad, or indifferent? And are we liable [00:51:00] because we didn't tell investors that terrorists might come in and blow up some buildings and kill a bunch of people.
There are, there will be things, whether it's a natural disaster or things out of the blue or some things that might be a little bit predictable, but nonetheless, you didn't expect it. And those surprises, those are hard for everybody. 
Speaker 2: Okay. So I think we're good for today. Thank you very much for joining me on my podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit. In, in terms of mental health and entrepreneurship and funding, which is a subset of entrepreneurship we talk about balancing life between your work life and your personal life.
And I have found that the word balance is often misleading. And some of the people that I follow actually to describe you should make your personal life a friendly competitor with your business life. They should each have their own [00:52:00] goals, their own business plan, or equivalent of that.
You should dedicate resources to both like again, an internal friendly competition so that both sides get a fair shake. Both sides have a fair day in the debate over what you're gonna do today, and that means that your personal life won't get lost or subsumed into your business life. 
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. Everybody is forever telling me, oh, you have to balance your work life and your business. Oh my God, no. My business takes up a bunch, but I still take my time for my personal, it's just not a 50 50 split. And it doesn't have to be all the time. Yeah. Especially entrepreneurs, you have so much to do just, but make sure you still are paying attention to yourself and right.
I know when I'm at the point where I want to punch somebody in the throat or whatever, and so I know I have to step away and I go play World of Warcraft and heal people [00:53:00] because DPS is not my thing. I go and I heal and it's fine. And so if you don't have something that you can, take a break to step away, go do something else maybe for an hour, maybe for the night and then come back.
That's something you need to have. And if it is gaming that you like to do, please stop marrying people who don't like gamers. Good. Crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there, there is a bit of compatibility that has to be dealt with. A little bit of differences I think is good. It creates some tension from time to time, but again the word balance may be the wrong word to use. Something to deal with, recognition and respect of the other person of the other things you're doing.
Give it that equal merit. I will let everybody get to a better [00:54:00] place. 
Speaker 2: Okay. Like I said, thank you very much for being on my podcast and I hope that you have a great rest of the day. 
Speaker 3: Thank you, Nikki. Thanks for letting me be a guest on your podcast. I enjoy the opportunity to have conversations like this.
It's sometimes fun to see where they go and where we end up.