YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Murray-Serter

lines on the record: 154
first: 2020-10-26
most recent: 2020-10-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“In Bangkok. I didn't sleep with her, but I tried to chat her up and stuff, and it was a straight up no. So she was best friends with my business partner, Joel's. Best mate. A cousin, sorry. So, anyway, the point being that's how we met her originally. And I'd like, you know, sent some very awkward Facebook wall messages when that was a thing, like, you know, trying to chat over the years. It was always. And then at like 30 or 31, like on my birthday,”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ah, well, do you know this story at all? No, I don't. No, okay, fine, fine. So technically speaking, I met her at 18 on the Cosan Road for one night, but I didn't sleep with her in Thailand.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, fracturing what he believes in and his ability to succeed and his ability to tell his own story about the hard work he'd put it in. 6040, if I was being brutal to myself, 70, 30, like, you know, the success of our last company on him. And to be honest, like a lot of the failure was related to me. And I personally don't regret any of it. And I really don't believe he does either. But being able to say this stuff to each other, let it all out, that then also gave me the confidence to say, like, Joel came up with like two or three business ideas before heights when we were figuring out what we want to do. Well, I was just like, no, mate, I'm going to do the same thing again. I don't care about that thing. Yeah, but it's really exciting. I'm like, it's not. to me, right? No one is going to have their health or mental health impact at that. I feel like that's my space. That's where I want to be. So really, really enabled us to just, you know, look at my mistakes of the past and my character and say, if you want to work with me, you know that I'm going to have to work on something I feel purposeful about.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The most hurtful thing that he said was that, you know, he felt that I had not contributed 50-50. And that I had like an almost irresponsible attitude towards what I was trying to get out of the business compared to what he needed to get out of the business. And that was a really meaningful start for us to decide on the next business too, because what he meant by that was Joel is like a very intelligent person. So he is motivated by challenge. If something is hard to fix, right, then he'll find a way to fix it. That is like, he'll get up in the morning for that. I won't. I'm motivated by making an impact and feeling like I'm having a difference and telling a story and impacting people and then telling me that, you know, that made them feel this, but that is like all emotion for me, right? He's pure like logic and challenge. So by me, you know, constantly discrediting the work that we were doing by saying things like that, right? By being too open and honest about my purpose and not putting on the filter, I was literally without care or remorse.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that's probably one of the most important things I've done in my life with spending time on company values with a business partner by identifying gaps, weaknesses and spending time hearing my failings from my best friend. What did you say? So much of what was true that I demonstrated a lack of focus. I'd been overly honest, right? So I hadn't picked my moments. It's like, you know, I appreciate a very transparent person. But, you know, but do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, you don't have to tell an investor to their face that you don't buy into the business that they've given you money for. Like you could have a filter. If things like that, this is the behavior”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To failure. And interestingly, like, you know, rehiring in heights this time, the thing that we've had for the last year before we had any employees was a set of company values and hiring processes and all sorts of like interview tips and hiring docs based on our values before we hired our first person. We must have had them for nine to 12 months because we were so certain of understanding who we are and what we stand for being the company values and that those company values lead to hiring the right people with the right mindset and that those people are the greatest leverage you could have as a founder to do less of the stuff yourself and enable brilliant people to take it forward.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's exactly that. And I think the opportunity that we all have as human beings to be creative is to certainly accept that things are not going to go on a straight path. But, you know, when confronted with these horrible moments of things like failure and everyone else thinking that you're a failure, that blow gets softened a lot when you get to reflect and think about what you learned. You know, really interesting experience that Joel and I did after failing was we went to business psychologists. We had a facilitator sessions over the course of a week with this was your fault. That was my fault. I take blame for this. I blame you for that, letting it all out, right? And then we spoke about, you know, we did personality tests and we looked at where our crossovers were and we had like for the first time a real clear view of strengths and weaknesses gaps and could map out some of the poor mistakes and decisions that we'd made”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I had a spiritual wedding in Ibitha, and then I went and did my honeymoon in Japan, and it was all, it was like hikes and spiritual searches and stuff. And, you know, there's another fantastic Japanese proverb, which is literally translated as full seven rise eight. But what it means is like if you fall down seven times, rise up the eighth.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. And, you know, and I come back to it all the time. I have my honeymoon in Japan because of discovering Ikigai. Because I'm like, so, you know, I'm very spiritual with this stuff.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Iki Gai is a Japanese term, basically looks like a Venn diagram on a Venn diagram, right? So you're at the center. And then the different aspects are things like, you know, what makes you happy, what makes other people happy, what makes you money, what makes other people fulfilled. It's like ticking off all of these things. And it's like if you can find that where you are in the center and you could say, am I contributing to society? Yes. Am I waking up every morning fulfilled? Yes. Am I mentally challenged? Yes. It's like ticking off all of these things. It's like this weird flower. You should definitely check it out.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All of that stuff is so exciting to learn. And like the opportunity to learn all of these things anew gets me out of bed. And so the whole like failing and starting again, you know, that's got nothing to do with confidence or lack of or anything. It's got absolutely everything to do with knowing where I'm in my sweet spot. It's a term that I learned years ago that sums it up so perfectly, which is icky guy. Are you familiar with Japanese Iki guy? That's me. I'm living my icky guy right now.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As long as you're learning, well, not you, I, as long as I am learning, I am fulfilled. And I think we all have this one thing we know to be true about ourselves, right? Starting a business is super hard, right? And, you know, I'm like I say, not a nutritionist, not neuroscientist, had no experience in the space. I've never launched a vertically integrated supply chain from three different countries. Our ingredients come to 10 different countries because we literally source the highest quality. So the omega-3 comes from like Canada and the blueberries come from Italy, like nuts.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm intrinsically motivated by growth and learning. So the way that I like to think of myself is someone else said this to me and I just thought it was so poetic and I was so impressed with her for using these words, which is like a lifelong intern. You know, this was a founder. She'd gone to Stanford, had a really successful career, and then she basically coming to intern at Heights for a few months. And I was like, you know, like I talked to you about that. I did that in other companies as well. But it was interesting to me to find someone else that did that. And I was like, I mean, like, you know, I could learn from you rather than the other way around. She's like, I'm a lifelong intern. Everywhere I go, I'm a lifelong intern. And I'm like, I talk about myself as a lifelong learner, but lifelong intern was even more powerful, right? I was like, wow, that's, you know, it's a real mindset towards, you know,”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But nothing on brain care. The most important organ in our body is so completely normalized in society to have skincare and haircare rituals and budgets in households, but not for our brains.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not from the vitamins, not from anything else, but suddenly they're interacting with the brand, they're welcoming a brand into their life who's sole focus is about how you can take care of your brain. You've got all these really interesting, very, very respected people just helping to coach you on your journey. And that is such an important part of this because you do have the disbelief in the first couple of months, right? And people like to be able to see and measure improvements. That's hard to do instantly with supplements, but it isn't hard to affect how someone feels and help encourage them to make changes in their own lifestyle that will make them feel better. That is the brand's responsibility, and that's our responsibilities. That's what we work quite hard on. Where I'm really passionate about building this brand is as a community. It started as a newsletter. Community is everything to me. Bringing people along on this journey of brain care and understanding why it's important. You know, the amount of money that we spend on skincare or hair care every day”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Point on, why wouldn't you read the emails of the thing that's coaching you to do those habits? And what we find is in the first 25 days or something like 90, I think it's more than that, it's like 93% of people have improved their brain health score on a self-administered basis from paying attention”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What happens for most people in the first month, let's be real, right? Like you just said, you know, the scientifically, typically speaking, this product will last, will take three months for you to feel anything, like all supplements. So it's a bit of a long game, right? You have to believe in that. Now, in the first month for you to feel an impact, maybe you will because where your nutritional levels were coming from and your mental state was coming from, but maybe you won't. So how can we help nudge you there? Well, we can give you awareness. So, yeah, so we sent people that this brain health survey, right? And self-administering, but it gives you a bit of a baseline, a score at the end of like, you know, where you are right now. And then we start sending you coaching comms, like very short emails and snappy bits of information about how to take care of your brain that you might not have thought about, things that are really small little habits that you can build in. And people start to read them. They have an unbelievably high open rate because you've just taken the first step to choosing to look after your brain. So from that...”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When this dissolves in your gut, literally the capsule dissolves the outer capsule with the inner capsule at the same time, the nutrients are being dissolved in fat. That is the same effect as what you get from food. So those capsules have been designed also around habits to help people pick a time. And a lot of people don't eat breakfast, right? And so they just end up forgetting their supplements full stop. So we did it so that you can start the same time. So you get ritualized by having the bottle out and you see it. And then the most important part, which is communication. So we actually have something like a brain health score, essentially. It's like an algorithm put together by a couple of neuroscientist PhDs and you take it before you start. And again, we do a 15 day check-in. And then before we send you your next month, because it's a subscription through the letterbox, before we send you your next month, we ask you to take it again.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, virtue signaling to yourself completely. Completely. I'm the kind of guy that looks after myself. I look after my most important organ, and this is my symbol of doing that. So that was like an important first step. Then, you know, the capsules themselves are in like patented, clever capsules. So you've seen like there's omega-3 on the outside, the nutrients on the inside. That's important because we learned that lots of people take supplements at different times of the day, ritualizing when you build a habit is really important. So if we could make these that you don't have to have them with food, like you do with most supplements because of the absorption, the absorption happens because the DHA omega-3 on the outside is fat.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So here's the thing. So, like, we hear this kind of stuff with heights and we love this because it's like opportunity, right? It's like challenge and opportunity. That's how everyone did it. Well, that's dumb. We're going to do it better. So like our first thing was the number one reason most people do not continue is because they forget out of sight, out of mind. So we designed a bottle that passed the wife test that wives were like, yes, I put that on my bedside table. Or yes, I'd have that out in my living room. Like you've just done, right? You've got your bottle there, but there's no other supplements there. It's because it looks nice and because it makes you feel good because you're looking after your brain and it's there.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, they feel guilty. They feel guilty. And they're like, well, I can't just take the vitamin C because I said I'd take D, I'd said I'd take that and everything else. And they're always separate. So people just give up. You know, there's two things to that. There's one, there's sort of like guilt about the promises that you were, like the person you wanted to be. And then the second is just, again, it's set and setting or, you know, out of sight, out of mind.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They all look the same. And what happens is psychologically, and we got told this the whole time, people basically open their cupboards, see so many that are like broken promises of the time they promised they were going to start and didn't continue.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we're not from this space, we're going to win because we are going to approach this completely differently. A, we start with community, building a newsletter and an audience, asking questions to that audience about what we should do and how we should do it. And can we see how they behave? So here are the things that we learn. Most people, like a lot of people, are super open-minded about taking supplements, starting supplements, right? The problem with supplements is it can be very difficult to feel the impact or know they're working. And so a lot of things with prevention and well-being in general, it's a commitment to the person you want to become more so than it is like a medication which cures a problem. And you're like, oh, that got fixed, that's great, that's over.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Entire world. Now, every single day, according to science, we're meant to have a minimum like an RDA, if you will, of 250 milligrams of omega-3s, right? You can get it from your food or you can get it from these pills as a safety net. Essentially what a supplement is, right? It's if you're not getting the food supplement, not instead of, don't take supplements instead of eating, they're supplements. So it's like a safety net. Now, that 250 milligrams, the minimum you can put in is 45 milligrams. So guess how much 7Cs put into their number one best-selling product? 45 on the dot. That means you have to take seven C's for six days straight just to get one day's worth of the scientific dose you're meant to get. But it's all small print and a consumer doesn't see that and supplements for whatever reason have been able to do that. So when we went into our supplement design, right, this was the awesome thing. Me and my business partner, Joel, came from a tech background at this point, right? We've done user experience. We've done all this stuff. And we are very much into this idea of...”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a great question. I think there's two parts to this, right? So, one is like supplements deserve a bad rep. This is the most important thing to address first and foremost because when I went, I was like, why is she giving me this prescribed stuff? I kind of just go to Holland and Barrow or Boots and just buy the things that she says there. It turns out there's this weird marketing thing in supplements where you can put a minimum mint. So there's the amount according to science that will have an impact on your body, brain, whatever. And then there's a marketing amount, which is way lower that you're allowed to put in on that product. So if you say like vitabiotics or, you know, a lot of products, there's an asterisk on those boxes. They're legally obliged to tell you. Tiny small print on the back that what you're taking is actually a fraction of the daily amount that you're meant to have according to science. But marketing wise, they can say promotes healthy this, promotes healthy that. You know, my favorite story on this is probably seven C's, the biggest amiga, right? Because we all grow up as children, our parents give us seven C's. And, you know, that's the biggest Omega 3 brand in the whole.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just a shoe like Lulu Lemon, like it's just like a little logo, an Omega logo on pants. It doesn't matter. The way that you express what you do and why you do it is the thing that has the power to change. My opinion and my own experience of being, you know, in that Shorditch hipster twat area where you just know about things early and trends sort of never come into contact with something so important that can have such an impact as nutrition and mental health, nutrition and taking care of your brain. To me felt like a calling, right? I've just suffered for six months. I've overcome something. This is all I want to do in my life.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So big and actually solved by the power of communication and brand. You know, a lot of people say brand and comms, that is not a market strategy. That is not defensible. I think those people are idiots and the wrong market because, you know, my counter to that is, do you think that Buddhist monks got everyone meditating or was it calm and headspace? Do you think that we love to run because we watch the Olympics or is it Nike getting in our heads? Do you think that people around the world are doing yoga because of like, you know, some Ashram or do we actually think it's Lulu Lemon? Brands create change in the world that we want to see and brands connect with human beings and create communities and the power of social media and standing for something is where brands take something that was always done before anyway. Stick a tick on a shoe.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People to read science papers without even realizing they're necessarily reading them. So every week you'll learn something from a scientific journal, which I will link back to that you can click and by the way, no one clicks it. And you can learn something that science says is good for your brain every week. That is essentially how the journey with heights actually started with this realization that something, as you know, when you, you know, the beautiful moment in life where you can spot an opportunity.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It just took me by so much surprise because I was like, well, if this is so well known in science, why didn't I know about it? I was working in Shoreditch at a scaling startup like bearded glasses, hipster twat, like, you know, keto vegan. Like, yes, I've heard of all of them. All my friends intermittent fast, yada, yada, yada. This is just like common sense brain food. Why is that not a thing that people know about? Why is taking care of your brain not something anyone's actually talked about clearly and actually found a really meaningful way to communicate what that stands for? And what science papers do really badly is like, you know, when I synthesize them, there's about two or three sentences that are saying the point, but it's just covered with jargon. They're boring as shit. So I was like, first step, newsletter, I will add some emojis and some lulls and make it millennial and fun. And I will get.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So many medical papers, scientific journals, about the impact of taking a high supplementation of X, Y, Z or obviously much more food of that particular ingredient and the impact it's had. And then when you're at the baseline, all of these examples.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was so simply solved. I don't actually believe it to be true. This must be placebo. This must be finally my placebo that has caused this. Instead, I did what I do. I'm quite nerdy. I started reading science papers because kind of, you know, the one thing I do hate on Instagram is like everyone's a nutritionist. Everyone's a this. Everyone's a that. I'm like, I don't want to listen to some guy that takes nootropics telling me about my brain and mental performance. I want to see what scientists that don't take any credit actually have to say about this stuff. And I learned that there are thousands, literally, of science papers. This is why I did the newsletter. I knew I'd never run out of content. It's like literally the deepest well of content ever, ever, ever to do what I'm doing. There were thousands of science papers on all of these ingredients and how they impact not just your mental health below the baseline. So if you're suffering from insomnia, if you're suffering from anxiety, even if you've got depression, schizophrenia.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But within two weeks, I was sleeping like a baby and I wasn't feeling anxiety. When you have a moment like that in your life, and you know this because you're a deeply inquisitive person, it makes you stop and it makes you go hold on a second.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mental health problems, which is what you currently have nutritional deficiencies, and don't realize there are three main things that I would recommend in your condition. One is omega-3s, the other is B vitamins, because again, that's for energy. So she explained that I'm having a spike at 2 a.m. So I need that spike not to happen. I need to have much more slow release of B vitamins in my energy supply, in my body every day. And then the third thing was blueberry extract, because it's an antioxidant and would help make lymphatic system whilst I slept right. She's saying this stuff to me. I'm like so skeptical I can't even tell you, not only not a supplement taker, but she's now recommending me three supplements, and I've been given pills by the doctor, and I'm like, I mean, like, come on, how is this going to be any better? So you can imagine my complete and utter surprise when I took those three things. I mean, they were very expensive. They were like medically prescribed ones, so super potent from, you know, I think it was Whole Foods or Planet Organic. They were pricing.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It and dietitian laws had heard of nutritionists because isn't that just everyone on Instagram? But a dietitian had no idea. But it turns out a dietitian is basically a nutritionist with a scientific degree they can work in the NHS and they work with sick people. So if you have a sick problem like insomnia, you go to a dietitian and they will literally tell you medically what they can do to affect your experience. And she just said to me She basically asked me about what I was eating and my habits and like all this kind of stuff. And I told her, and this is someone who I think I'm quite healthy, generally speaking. And she just said, you're basically not getting enough brain food. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. Like, I don't understand the context of that statement. And she was like, well, let me put it this way. Your brain is an organ, right? It's 60% fat, 90% of the fat in your brain is this one compound called DHA. And most people that come to me with central...”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So the truth is, I tried all these different things. So, like, I went to, I did therapy, I did sleep therapy, I used all the apps, calm, sleepyO, I tried, you know, cutting out alcohol. I tried drinking much more alcohol. I tried, you know, like you name it. I'd like not smoked weed for a while. I was like, right, that's it, getting a weed habit back. You know, like anything that you could possibly do to just like stay zonked. I went to the doctor and he recommended me sleeping pills. But that really irked me. And we just talked about lost connections, Johann Hurry, right? I don't appreciate medication that will work that night as solving my problem. And I'm smart enough to know that it wouldn't solve my problem. It would just help me sleep that night. So I still got those sleeping pills and I never use them. And I kept on going for this journey, the search for why this was happening. And it led me in the end to a dietitian, which I'd never worked with before. And by the way, I didn't even know.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this story. Self-doubt about business. Self doubt about business, self-doubt about who I am, and about why I'm feeling like this. Anxiety is such a complicated thing because there's a great, I think it's why Lao Tzu, and it's not a perfect verbatim quote, but he said something like depression is a symptom of sadness for the past we've lived, anxiety is obsession and confusion over the future you're going to have. And that's why like mindfulness and being present is the antidote. I think I really resonate with that because, you know, in my own depression experience with loss of my father, the past, my anxiety was like the person, A was anxiety about the night sleep I'm about to not have, but also like, you know, who am I going to be? What's going to happen? How long can I live like this?”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Couldn't sleep. And I was like, I don't understand. Like, I have everything that I wanted, and I'm not, I don't even want much. You know, I've worked on that stuff. So where has this come from? And, you know. Basically, chronic anxiety, the feeling of chronic anxiety is lots of sweating, lots of self-doubt, lots of almost like a bit of a personality change in me, outwardly and quite confident, but this experience with anxiety was sort of really making me question everything about what I say, how I feel, who I am. And, you know, it was in this cycle where if I'm about to go to sleep, I'm not going to be able to go to sleep because of this, you know, these feelings of doubt and stories I'm telling myself. And it became this perpetual illness. And by the way, I tried so many things, right? Because”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is when anxiety starts to build because anxiety does go with it, Insomnia very well because you start to get scared of going to sleep, which builds anxiety. You can't really sleep when you've got anxiety. So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, like every single night. So I had insomnia for six months. And my symptoms were go to sleep at midnight, but I'd wake up at 2 a.m. And at 2 a.m. I was wide awake and there was no going back to sleep whatsoever no matter what I did. So this was at a time when business was going well. I was pretty happy in life. I was getting married. Yes, my dad had passed away, but my mum had just recovered from cancer. So I'd had like the whole fear of her and she's already had it before and recovered once. So it was very unlikely to recover the second time. But she had a roof over my head. I practice gratitude. You know, like I am just that archetypal dickhead that's just too smug for the world. And I just suddenly...”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so anxiety and insomnia were completely linked with each other. So really, really fascinating experience. To me, the most interesting of all of them, really, because At the time I got, and so at the time I got insomnia.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That things aren't always perfect. Even the manifestation of rain is a great moment to just go out and be like, things aren't perfect, but I owe it to myself for my own rest and for my own space to do this today.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've got, I do have a list of habits that I've created for myself. And, you know, talking about habit formation, terrible error everyone makes is like, oh, I'll listen to Dan. I'll do all of these habits. No, I pick like one new one a year. To be honest with you, my number one mental health hack, full stop that I say to everyone. Everyone always asks me my one thing. Mine's going for a walk. You know, spending an hour or so walking, if you can do that without being distracted, I mean, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, but I also go for some where I don't say anything with me and I just go for the walk. That's my number one health hack because it's not only good for your brain, but good for your body. And because it puts you into, there's two things. One, we live in London. Actually, to be honest, like gets way worse a rep about rain than, you know, you would think because I don't go out with a raincoat most days. But even if it's raining, you still go out. And that's a great moment to just be with the elements and”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because if it's in my calendar, I'm going to pay attention to it and I'm going to respect it. And if I don't, I won't respect my own boundaries because I know that I'm intrinsically a bit of a workaholic. And if I'm passionate, you can't stop me. So I have to stop myself. Knowing, you know, taking preventative measures towards things like burnout if you are happy, I think has been a really mature decision that I'm really proud of taking this time around because this is a bit like the imposter syndrome, right? How am I going to overcome it? I'll write a newsletter every week. Great, I feel way less like that now. Same thing, burnout. I don't feel like I'm going to get burnout, even though I've been sitting in my bedroom pitching to investors like all of February and March. It's not a great existence because of lockdown.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your insights, right? One of my fears from Heights is I won't see burnout coming because now I'm living my purpose. Now I am so passionate I get so much motivation and pleasure from working on heights that I could do this 24 7 and I diorize stopping myself, right? I literally put in my diary to start all my things rest, naps, peloton, like all of the things. I talked to you earlier about my Shakti meditation. These things are in my diary.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“However, so it's like find your motivation and then 10 exit, but I overdid it. And so the result, the net result was like one day I woke up from my alarm trying to do it and I like basically couldn't move. And that alarm basically, you know, kept going for the next few days. And I was like, nope, I just can't do it. I can't go to work. I can't get out of bed. It was really like a really strange time. The thing that's really interesting to me this time, right? So I analyzed that as partly burnout and I was trying to do too much and not spending enough time on myself, not having any rest, not being sensible about my personal space and my life, which was stupid, but the kind of thing you learn the hard way quite often. And then the other thing was obviously like I was working on a business that I wasn't very happy and I was having more fun meeting these people and helping like make introductions than I was working in my own business. Now with heights, you know, I'm very consciously aware of the opposite problem to be true. So we just talked about burnout from some of”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One in the App Store and all this stuff. So the inbounds start coming thick and fast, right? And so I was like, I can't do this the way I was doing it, which is all over the place. I'll go to Old Street at 6 a.m. every single Tuesday and Wednesday. And between 6 and 9, I'll do like sessions, right? If you come meet me between that time and like your 45 minute slot, I'll fit you in. And then Tuesday and Wednesday became Tuesday to Thursday. And then before I knew it, I was doing it like almost every single day, trying to be so helpful. And it was great because I get loads of energy from that, right? Like so much, there's a great quote of, you know, there's no such thing as altruism because you're ultimately doing it for yourself. And I believe that.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just no energy whatsoever. Just like no ability, a bit like when I had coronavirus, to be honest, just like zonked. And nothing I was doing was able to make me feel like I was getting the energy. I think the reason why as well was, again, I'm a helpful guy. I really believe in my greater superpower. Full stop is connecting people, right? I've got infinite numbers of ways that I've connected people. Eight people have got married that I've introduced. You know, they say three in heaven, but I don't quite believe in heaven. It's irrelevant. But point being, you know, so many co-founders introduced. I really just believe in the serendipity of creating, you know, moments where you know that person and that person just should have that chat. And I force it to happen. So because of that, because I really believe in serendipity as well, I do try and say yes to people and help them out. So what was happening to me at Gravel was we were flying. We were like number one.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got my co founder, and I was just like explains that I've literally, I didn't know what it was at the time, I was like, I think it might be depression. I didn't know what it was, though. This is the thing I probably didn't even say those words.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But let me tell you something else that's interesting that I'm consciously aware of because I've had burnout. And by the way, my experience of it was, you know, I just couldn't get out of bed for a month. That was it. I basically just stayed in bed and I just couldn't face going to the office. I couldn't face leaving my bedroom. You've got a team in”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A bit, but then at the same time, like, you know, like everyone, I'm scared of failure, so I didn't want to be a failure, so I wanted to make it work. And, you know, by hook or by crook, I was willing to push really hard to make it work. And, you know, I look back on my time with Gravel. And other than like working hard, I was working against my purpose. And I could feel it. And when people ask me, I'm actually like, as you know, always to my detriment, honest. So, I would tell people, including the wrong people, including investors, that my heart really isn't in it and like all this stuff. Because, you know, all I had left for authenticity was to be honest in these”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, good question. A bit of serendipity in the sense of listening to users, going on a bit of a journey and the product sort of developing and then it getting catching fire before you really have an opportunity to stop and say, no, that's not really for me.”
2020-10-26 · The Diary of a CEO · Overcoming Depression, Burnout, Anxiety and Insomnia with Dan Murray-Serter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT