How to manage your stress response when you're up against it - Sensate Co-Founder Anna Gudmundson

32:51But it's like, it builds up. So, and personally, if I have, like, if I had a billboard message, like it would be neuroplasticity is real. I've had so much stuff that I had to work through. My parents were when I was, you know, in that attachment. phase, so under three years old, and, you know, just my personality and fitting into the world, being big personality, female, you know, like, it's just like, I've had so much stuff to work through. And I'm a different person for it. And I'm so grateful for my younger self, because it's actually not even that hard. I mean, it's like a lifelong journey, and so many layers to pay off, peel off, but every step is rewarding.

33:40Investing in sort of reprogramming. I used to program actual computer codes, so it's a very good analogy for me. And I kind of came from it from now. I'm like, hey, I have a bug in the system. Like this problem keeps coming back, or this feeling keeps coming back, or this scenario is repetitive. And I'm like, okay, how do I fix this? And there are loads of different modalities. But just this kind of, we're not born away and we're like that the rest of our lives. Everything is completely reprogrammable. And it's not everything. I think there's that core essence of who we are, but our stuff, you know, that's definitely reprogrammable.

34:17So yeah, like just a kind of side comment on the encouragement of neuroplasticity is real. And I think any tool works. I mean, there is an abundant market. So I'm like, if breathwork is working for you fantastic i have all of the above right for me um i use breath work when in the mornings i use meditation at night and i need my sunset in the afternoon because otherwise my prefrontal cortex burn out and i don't have focus in the evenings so uh you know it's whatever works for people but i think what we're offering is sort of using the body's own systems to have an effective way to to find um you know that a few notches down on the stress scale yeah we have a saying at heights that we use in our marketing which is you're not stuck with the brain you're born with um which is a very basic way of saying neuroplasticity is real uh because it really is right anyone can change their life at any given moment and it's one of the reasons personally that I always encourage people pick some positive and uplifting people to follow on social media find new ideas in books that you both agree with and are interested in and disagree with so that you can learn like all of the stuff is neuroplasticity in action and I think one of the most interesting and enlightening and positive things is knowing that you can create a habit from today or tomorrow, whatever that thing is, and it will literally completely change the direction of your life by changing your brain if you can work at sticking at it, which is also why don't pick too many habits at once, just pick one.

36:04But for me, you know, two of the most impactful habits, when I first learned about neuroplasticity, the two habits that I decided to focus on was trying to read a new book every week, audible, so read is a bit of a strong word for what I do, but listen. And the second was practice gratitude. And those two things, you know, every single day for, I don't know, the last maybe six or seven years, I've done the sort of three things I'm grateful for. And every week, I'll either listen to a book a week or on walks or, you know, enough podcasts in between. But the point is learning. And all of those things make me a completely different person 10 years later to who I was 10 years ago and it's deliberate it's I wasn't in a good place I wanted to be someone that I wasn't and instead of feeling helpless about it I understood that I actually could change all of those things and believing it and doing it creates the change so yeah neuroplasticity is absolutely real that is my plug for neuroplasticity and apply for podcasts and apply for podcasts yeah exactly always come to new information inspiring content exactly and also one of my favorite sayings you know when the student is ready the teacher appears so if this message hit you at the right time then you can thank Anna for teaching you today about both neuroplasticity and the vagus nerve two of the most incredible parts of human existence realistically um so let's get back to stress why do you care about stress was my first question let's talk about the most stressful moment of your life is there something that springs to mind when i ask that most stressful period i guess moment is a bit rich but so uh you know as part of my grown-up life that i actually remember.

37:51I would say, yeah, I was turnaround CEO for a public company in the UK. And in only 18 months, we had, well, since I took on, like, restructured, pivoted the company at 80 % of revenues in the new market. I think half the losses, almost got rid of all the debt. It was, like amazing. And then we had issues with a lender and ended up having to sell the company sort of 85 % through the journey. That was insanely stressful. And I think it was my biggest growth as a CEO, biggest professional growth, and just having to dig so deep to find my resources. and I definitely felt very lonely at the time. I hadn't really set myself up with coaches and things like that, which I'm a massive fan of, by the way.

38:55And in that moment, yeah, it was hardcore. And I remember I was waking up in the morning and I was finding the energy. I was like unstoppable, just trying to find new ways. And in the end, we actually did a reverse merger with a listed shell and we sold the platform to an Australian company. So, you know, it wasn't by any means like a good exit or anything like that, but we succeeded. But I was waking up and I just had to reframe every morning, I get to do this. Because the overwhelm of impossibilities that, you know, was there in the bedroom when I woke up, I was just having to reframe that as I really get to learn, I get to grow.

39:40I get to I get to do this. I am becoming a better CEO every moment of this. I am growing my stress resilience. And I chose this also. You don't choose what happened to you, but you chose the role and that is the role. And it's shit. Sometimes we know. Yeah. Don't try to turn around an amelistic company. That small cap amelistic company. You heard it here first, folks. um so yeah that one was really challenging and i really had to go very deep in finding internal resources and i do find sometimes that maybe well i i forgive all the challenging times because there is deep growth there is a lot of growth in those moments and so it's just kind of seeing that silver lining which is not always easy when you're in the thick of it but when you're able to see that when when we're doing it then you know it really helps um with that reshifting and that energy and that positive and that like negative to positive stress okay so that is an exceptionally stressful period i uh i can see i can see why you're like okay when i'm done with that maybe i can investigate something slightly different and I can see how going back to startup life at the earlier stage and Sensate makes sense.

41:01So talk to us a little bit about your journey. How did you get into starting Sensate? Yeah, well, I have to give credit for anything like early days product related to my co-founder, Stefan, who is an amazing human being. And with sort of pioneering integrated healthcare in the UK as well, has really taken in patients that have been to so many doctors and have very complex health conditions, often stress and trauma related, or there is some aspect of stress and trauma in the middle of all these different symptoms. And so he has his whole life, you know, had to pioneer into different areas and find ways to successfully heal and help people with his group of elite specialists that they were working with.

41:51And what he could see together with his team was that good vagal nerve tone was possibly the silver bullet to recovering from almost anything. Or rather, if you weren't able to manage the stress levels, it would be extremely difficult to recover from almost anything. And what he could also see was very interesting was that prescribing meditation, breath work, mindfulness exercises, people's ability to do that kind of fell off a cliff some 15, 20 years ago. And he needed to find other ways. And he's been a gatekeeper for a lot of different tools and practices and available treatments and found that the sort of infrasonic treatment on this larger kit sort of bed was really effective.

42:41He was using it himself, but he could also see it was working on patients and and sort of he's got this ability to really see holistically like it's it's very very unique and make him i think a very very good doctor and um and so you know just knowing how the body is built it's like well this part of the body is built to create resonance and the vagus nerve goes through here it's good what part place to activate the vagus nerve similar to alming and so we started working on a prototype and um and we were introduced and so for me i had no intention whatsoever to co-found. I was working as an independent contractor for venture-backed companies at the time, a lot in the product space.

43:23Did some more restructurings, so I've definitely had a lot of hardcore experiences. So you were like the bad cop that people would bring in because you've got like a nice smiley face, but then you deliver loads of shit news. Well, I try to do it with a lot of heart. And actually also, you know, if the company, if a company doesn't survive, it's not good for anyone. So it's like when you have to do those things, it's really sort of getting everyone to understand that this isn't a personal thing, this is what's happening in the business. You know, if you talk another hour about that, it's definitely very challenging, and I really care about people.

43:56But, you know, just shifting the focus from the individual drama to this is a business that needs to survive is sort of really important in that context. But I was very interested, both of you think Stefan is an amazing person and doing fantastic work. So I wanted to help him. I had other much larger clients in the tech sector, which is my background. And I was also interested in this new paradigm of frequency. So, you know, I having also, you know, studied math, actually taught math at university at some point when I was 24 and signal processing and all these things that I mentioned. I think we're starting to understand the waveform.

44:35form. So we really studied reality as matter for a long time, but really it isn't. Everything is frequency and vibration. And that's also, you know, what, what, you know, Tesla would say. So, uh, I think, uh, you know, that was what drew me just an interest, you know, for real life applications of anything that is frequency based and makes a lot of sense to me. And then I helped him as an advisor to the company and also a little time on contract startup rate to get the first product to market and since i'm a data geek i started like where's the where's the usage data and on the sort of typical 90 day line where you have from apps for example you got single digit retention in the wellness space and typically and i go back and i'm like oh guys there's something wrong with usage data here because it's like 10x industry standard and they came back to me like no this is real i'm like what because we also sold it with sort of broad messaging on on facebook right so we hadn't this wasn't you know some little club that was all into vegas or anything like that so that was incredibly fascinating to me because then i realized okay this is potentially a tool for the largest market in the world and the biggest problem like this so i took it very seriously and it was more like okay i need to help stephan get this off the ground because this is a product that's needed by so many people millions and millions of people and ended up then sort of supporting taking a board director role and then finally uh because he wanted me on board i'm like all right i guess this is what i'm doing and at that point really knew stephan knew the company the financial opportunity as well as the the impact we could have so um you know it's not the first startup I did.

46:22But it was almost reluctantly and really driven by both Stefan and this incredible product. I love this story because I think it's more common than we actually know behind the scenes of how companies are founded and co-founded. I think people get very hung up with the idea of co-founder from day one. It's kind of like, I don't know, any successful company you've ever heard of, like at a certain size, most companies just die anyway. And it's all insignificant. Like if you're relatively early, you're early, like full stop. And certainly early enough to be co-founder because there's a long way to go if the vision is big and the audience opportunity is large enough.

47:10So I actually think it's great to hear the side of the story of someone who is flirting with the founder professionally, of course, Anna, don't worry, but you know, platonically flirting with the opportunity around them, doing the advisory work, building a relationship because that is actually like the number one thing where co-founders break up and have the biggest problems. And I think I read somewhere like number one reasons companies fail other than running out of cash is co-founders falling out, breaking up and not being able to resolve their differences. So how do you build trust with a partner long-term or don't get into bed with the first one that you meet, like try and actually experience what it's like working together.

47:49I think just hearing how you've approached it, you know, it sounds like a really good relationship forming and great opportunity as well to identify each other's weaknesses, right? Even to the point of, you know, you're the CEO. And I'm assuming both of you are able to recognize that that is the sensible thing. But ego is a funny thing, isn't it? So sometimes the founder is like, no, no, I need to be the CEO because I'm the founder. And you're like, well, yeah, sure, but you'd actually not be a very good one. And can we have that conversation compared to my experience? And I'd love to know how you approach these thorny topics from the beginning.

48:23Yeah, no, I mean, I think because Stefan and I both have done a lot of our own work, and it's this interesting thing in relationships where it's like, okay, we can actually have disputes and really be pretty upset about things, but we know that we're going to come back. It's this trust that, you know, we'll come back. It doesn't matter what happens. Like, we'll come back to each other and we'll come back in a constructive way and we'll find a way through it. And I think that's, you know, from our respective relationships that we, you know, may have worked on, but also just like the personal work.

49:01Definitely recognize Stefan for for the sort of not CEO ego, but I think it's also not like a role that he necessarily wanted to do. And in terms of the co-founder, I think, you know, there wasn't a business. There was a prototype in a clinic. And so really kind of what I've come in and done is I've raised all the money. I, you know, doubled revenues year on year since we launched in 2019. You know, the hiring, the firing, the hustling. I call him the healer and I'm the hustler. So, you know, it's it's I think it's when you know what you're good at and what you want to do makes you happy. Taking on that role is not great.

49:41But then also the role that isn't aligned is unhelpful. But I think for me, it wasn't it wasn't even an option because I saw that that would not be functioning. Like, you know, the way I make decisions around the business and, you know, making sure that we're able to continue, focus, not develop 200 products and then have no cash, etc. I mean, it's still obviously extremely, you know, challenging to raise, you know, round after round. But, you know, we've been successful today. So that's very exciting. As I mentioned, we've actually had double, twice as much in revenues as we've raised today. So it's like that is my space.

50:24That is like where I operate. And I can't operate and implement and do my magic if I'm going to try to do that from below somehow and the decisions about. So that was also just a choice for me. Like, you know, then I got other things to do. There are an abundance of opportunities for work as well. So I do think that, yes, it's a good recognition. And I think about that a lot as well. I actually think that investors and VCs really should look at the relationship between the founders as an important aspect of investments because it's a huge, as you mentioned, reason for failure. and you know I feel like both Stefan and I I wouldn't say the investment in the relationship is necessarily where it needs to be because we're so damn busy and you know I'd say especially myself but but that we sort of have that baseline of sanity and ability to come back to each other and find our internal processes so not projecting my like okay what is it that I didn't hear what this is that like that whole kind of hygiene relationship management of our own triggers and our own emotions but that isn't always there as a lot of people have never even heard those words never thought about it and you know gonna hit their own trigger barriers at some point in in a in a founder relationship because you are going to go through some seriously stressful times together and yeah I mean the irony of the expectation on you to not get overly stressed during really stressful times is almost too much.

51:49So the hustler and the healer, absolutely incredible sound of a dynamic duo, by the way, possibly the best, you know, you usually have the, you know, the operator and thinker or whatever. I love hustler and healer. That's brilliant. As the hustler, what are your, what are your biggest blind spots? What are your weaknesses? What are the challenges you have as a leader that you still haven't nailed? All right. So I think one aspect is just the kind of yin-yang space. As a society, we're all in the yang and I am too. So I'm constantly just making sure that I spend a little bit more time in the manifestation space.

52:29And it's an interesting thing, actually. It's kind of personal, but I can notice when I do how things work. In a way, I'm like, huh, I think I'm a pretty powerful manifester, But I don't do it because my rational brain doesn't think it makes sense. Right. So I do very often get stuck in overdoing. I think I've shifted a lot from my two near burnouts. And it's both my ability to actually enjoy my work when even in the middle of fires, you know, that that shifts a lot. But then also to notice, I can feel now after my, I was actually like sick for a few years, saved by functional medicine. I'm so grateful.

53:13And through that process, I really had to come into my body. Now I feel when I'm like, oh, I just shifted into burning adrenaline. Okay, I need to take a break. So just, you know, managing that. But it's constant work, you know. It's just like you're talking about habits and you do them for a bit and then you fall out. It's OK. You know, you still did them. You still did a little bit of wiring. So you're like, just go back, just go back and restart them again. So for me, it's it's constant work in progress. I can sometimes move too fast and I have a great connection with the team and they remind me.

53:50So like, hey, what's happening? So I think they're all sort of things that I'm working on, which by that doesn't make them particular blind spots. Right. But if they were actual blind spot, I wouldn't know about them. So so I guess, you know, yeah, there's tons of things that are work in progress. I was just thinking if there was like one major thing. But I think that mostly it is that thing that I just end up going to action when things are, you know, when there's high pressure, I go to action. And for an entrepreneur, that is obviously a great skill. But it does also sometimes mean that I forget to just sit back and be in that space of what is it that I'm trying to manifest here.

54:28You guys, you know, we had recently, we had the founder of Theragun on and he came to tell, or Therabody now. And he came to tell the story of how he founded it. And, you know, such a big company now and so uniquely positioned in the space with copycats and all sorts of things. And it was just utterly fascinating to hear true product innovation from a sector expert on a device that's made such a big impact and creates a category where there isn't really a demand. There's the problem, which is pain, but there isn't a product or a problem, so to speak. No one's looking for a hardware product to solve that problem at all.

55:09um it really reminds me of your journey as well because his story is very much about category creation um and that's what i think is going on here right and you're much earlier in that journey but what you've fundamentally done is understand something on the scientific side which is you know we're making a drastic difference to people's stress levels by connecting the vagus nerve and yes, no matter whether you're woo-woo or science, energy and frequency is, you know, really the one constant between the two worlds, right? This is not really disputed. This is just fact. It's physics and spirituality too.

55:47So I think there's something really interesting in the category creation side. The question for you is how are you actually going about manifesting your vision and your success as a category with a physical product like this. And yeah, I want to basically challenge you on the manifestation side to grow a little bit live on our podcast by telling us how you're approaching it. And by the way, if you're a listener and you're rolling your eyes and being like, oh God, manifestation, Dan, shut up. You know, in science it's called neuroplasticity and in business it's just called planning. So it's okay.

56:25There's a word for it no matter where you come from. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, any sports person will visualize their jump or run or score before, you know, it's like it's not it's not nothing woo woo. But yeah, I think there is a sort of the early stage in a company is always about, OK, that's where we're going. OK, everyone knows. OK, now how do we get to the next round? I mean, that's that's the sort of the sort of set up early stage. So where we're going is really a lifelong relationship with customers around stress. So it's both a brand, a consumer brand, where we have multiple products and services, but stress comes back in life.

57:11But you'll be a different part of the journey. You will need different things at different times. You will have needs during sleepless nights with small kids, deep trauma, etc. So at the moment, we have one product. And fortunately, it serves, you know, as I mentioned, the whole wellness continued. But there's so much more we could provide for our customers, so much more support. And they're asking for it. Because what's interesting, what we can see is that because the product works, there's trust. Because, yeah, I wouldn't put this product into market if it didn't work. I've got better things to do.

57:40Life is short. So I think, you know, that's the big vision which we're talking about, like how and also there's much more to that. How do we interact as a company? already today really focusing on like how even customer success is much more hand-holding. Really empathy at the core of the business for we're dealing with stressed people and it shifts. So dealing with stressed people from a customer service, customer success perspective can be challenging, right? But just bringing in that empathy, it shifts everything. It's not about them. It's just like, okay, we're dealing with stressed people.

58:11We're really helping here. So it's both the suite of products and services and what we offer as this lifelong partner that that are, yes, we come here when you have time to stress. And when you don't need us, that's okay. Because we know that you will still be telling friends and family, gifting our products, et cetera, which you already are, because this is something that comes and goes in life. Near term, and yeah, so what we're finding, for example, just an example of sort of new product category is, apart from parents in London, we don't do bricks and mortar. so because like we allow people to discover the product online they are have the ability to go and research look at reviews and i see that the vast majority really think the product works they can watch some videos and sort of find out and discover the product online and that's much more effective once we get to a stage where we have brand awareness and product awareness based on all the digital work that we've done then you know it might make sense to to have products on the shelf.

59:13And, you know, we are doing a challenging thing, which is reaching that really wide audience, but we are reaching them. And I am so passionate about the fact that we look at our usage data and a lot of people, the first thing they've done to deal with the stress and anxiety was Biosensate. So it's not, you know, that they're this geek that have 2000 devices and they bought another one, but we're really reaching the people that we want to reach. We have near 50 % men and women which is also uh you know fantastic there's more you know stigma in uh for for men talk about stress and anxiety and mental health even to have the awareness that you need help possibly and and that's something that we also deeply care about and i think you know there are other ways to reach we have a lot of of the biohacker health hackers uh alpha male like ben greenfield and all these amazing people who like the product and so great if they can inspire to to to deal they use it for for optimization, but it also obviously works for stress and anxiety.

1:00:07So it's just kind of how to, there's a lot of different considerations where, you know, it's mixing the mission of what we're trying to achieve with the business strategy. And again, I wouldn't do, I wouldn't be doing this. I had an opportunity to test out, are we able to sell this product on broad messaging? Are we able to get people to use it before I even took the co-founder on? It was fantastic. And I could talk a long time about how to test out and destroy business models before you raise money because that's another favorite topic of mine which I did a bit I mean um I've got time if you've got time please tell us I mean I you know honestly that sounds super interesting and you are an expert on this so go on tell me how can you rip apart a business model the early stage how do we know for our listeners how do they know that they're um not about to commit to absolute dog shit so So yeah, this is something that it surprises me both sometimes from early stage investors and also entrepreneurs.

1:01:07And I did a bunch of consulting in this field in the past. And so where I start is just like, okay, what assumptions need to be true for this to work? And that will be both obviously understanding a business model, like in order if the, you of making this is X and the price is this, this is my margins and to get to break even, okay, I need to sell this many products. That's just kind of a basic thing. But then also, for a person to buy this, what needs to be true? Does it need to be trust? Does it need to be a sense that they're getting a deal? What's the dynamic? And then you can test that out.

1:01:49So any type of questionnaires, interviews, any kind of really low cost, easy customer exploration. and I did it for startup on a budget right so I'm because I love psychology and I love user behaviors and I look a lot of this stuff so I structure what it is I want to test out and I literally just hired people on Upwork to do market research give me the data on the markets do the breakdown and then like someone that does the customer exploration which is important and also questionnaire design is important that you do it right so it's not leading and and I'm like you know it's like there's been people that i worked with that had already been backed and i'm like guys it doesn't matter how much you scale it's it's not going to break even there isn't a trust on this side um here's all the evidence the expectation on pricing is this the expectations like it was a matchmaking platform for example it's like a complete mismatch in expectations both on pricing and service and trust on the two sides and they ended up counting the whole the whole project so um you know sometimes it's you know vision and there are many different ways of doing things but they're always like but what needs to be true like something needs to drive someone to pay for something it's a need or a want or desire or an insecurity or a belief but like understanding that and then just finding okay am i on the right path then you know yeah okay cool i'll keep going what next can i test out but to to not even explore that and just have an idea in your head and all your friends are saying oh that sounds like a great idea which always is the case and not doing any kind of curiosity.

1:03:24As is the fact that they often then don't even buy it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, also true. So, yeah, that's a little passion of mine. So I have been known to be a little bit of a startup idea killer. But because, you know, we want successful startups. We want entrepreneurship that are, you know, as an entrepreneur as well, to be willing, you know, the my baby problem, right? Like, you know, you have to be willing to let go, to pivot, to change, to if you're too married to your idea and you don't have that deep sense of curiosity. Yeah, it can it can you can spend a lot of your own time and other people's money and never be successful in your dream, never comes to fruition.

1:04:06So, you know, it's from a space of love. Yeah, there's a strange experience I've had. So I failed a business previously. And so you learn loads from failing. and you know it was high profile it was embarrassing it was all the stuff we'd raised lots of money it all went to shit you learn a lot and we had a high confidence right and lots of hubris and everyone was telling us we were amazing and lots of users it was a terrible business but great product but doesn't make a good business so typical venture-backed reality and then when I was starting Heights you know people ask lots of questions and I think they were really surprised how often and how comfortably I would say, I don't know.

1:04:47And the really experienced investors were like, okay, this guy gets it. And the less experienced people were like, this guy's a fucking idiot. He doesn't know the answer to any of the questions. It was a really interesting insight because that stuff is quite flipped. The more experienced you are, both as a founder and an investor, you realize that you don't know all the answers. It's not possible to. You're going to go through a test and learn iteration phase. There are assumptions and you know that they're assumptions um and the less experienced you are the more confident you are that your idea is right and the less experienced the investors are they're more they're like great thank god finally a guy that gets it actually it's not it's just someone who's really confident and there's a massive difference because when that confidence hits the market you get a real hard wake-up call yeah um so that's one of my experiences i've learned like the more and now i'm an investor myself in so many different startups and i'm love to hear from people that they don't really know.

1:05:40And I'm like, yeah, okay, fair. Exactly. Neither do I. I guess we'll learn together. And that's really the process, right? It's like, it's a process. The question I have for you, which is attached to this, by the way, is it is so terrifying to do that with hardware because it's so hard. You know, I came from a software background myself. So, and Heights, it's supplements. It's not hardware like yours is hardware. We can change stuff, but it's a pain in the ass to change stuff um but my pain in the ass will be a fraction of the pain in the ass for you so and i know because i've invested in some hardware companies and you've got to get a lot of assumptions and you've got definitely got to get enough assumptions right if two one too many is off that hardware is is screwed and the cost is just too high to recover from so i think that's always fascinating to me about hardware uh product founders it's like you've got to be kind of right enough for getting the product out into market and having it not fail and have faults and all of these things that will kill a business does that stress you out well so i don't really let it stress me out nothing stresses and are out well yes but i think you know i come from a software background as well and i've actually worked with hardware a couple of times in the past.

1:06:58But, you know, you can apply agile processes to hardware as well, and you must. So, you know, nowadays, it doesn't work the way it used to. You work with partners. First, you work with a prototype small batch partner, and then you iterate a bit there. And then you get a sort of startup style manufacturer that can do small batches. And, you know, yeah, you have some returns and field failures in the early days. You need to replace those for the customer. And, you know, there's some costs involved with that. But, you know, you're never going to create a batch of thousands of products until you've iterated on smaller batches.

1:07:34And, you know, nowadays, like you don't build a factory. There are amazing partners all over the world that are, you know, experts in manufacturing and, you know, product design and the rest of it. And then there are different levels of complexity. I think for us, the complexity is kind of in the firmware and the whole innovation and what we actually have a patent for. And, you know, the fact that we're using vibration is, well, sonic vibration, you know, has some impact. But we're not actually using insanely unavailable or complex components. So, yeah, I have to say, I think the sort of hardware is hard is becoming a little bit of a myth, given that the partners you work with, you're not doing it yourself.

1:08:25I'm not, none of us in the company, you know, know how to run a manufacturing factory. You work with, you work with partners that do that all day long. So yeah, understanding, you need to have the in-house understanding, obviously, of how to work with them and requirements. But yeah, agile, agile man. Anna, final question. And thank you so much for all your time, by the way. It's been super fascinating for me. Okay. Listeners that want to go on a similar journey to you. and that is you know creating something new in a category what is your advice for them it's worth it um i think um there are different drivers there is one which is an identity i want to be an entrepreneur but if this is something like it's a little buzz inside like i want to do this, I want to get this out, then yeah, just absolutely go ahead.

1:09:23And stepping out of the comfort zone is going to feel uncomfortable. This is another of my favorite billboard things, which is, you know, the uncomfort is not a sign that you're on the wrong path. So when we start to get difficult questions, the things are challenging and we get no, so like, oh, maybe I'm not supposed to do that. No, no, no, no. It's just because you're out of the comfort zone. And And it's like discerning the difference where it's like, oh, do I have blind spot? Am I not listening? Am I not receiving this feedback? Am I not exploring? Am I not willing to look at maybe this isn't a viable business?

1:09:54But if it's just damn uncomfortable and challenging and you still have this inner belief, you've got to keep going. And the world needs entrepreneurs to deliver their gifts. I mean, that is just an important deep belief of mine. The world needs more conscious entrepreneurs like you, Anna, and hopefully inspiring others to do the same as well. So thank you so much for joining us on Secret Leaders. Thank you, Dan. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks. If you enjoyed this episode and found it useful, please write us a review and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. It makes a real difference.

1:10:28And we genuinely love reading what you think. We read every single review. I've been your host, Dan Murray-Surter, And we'll be back next week with more lessons for entrepreneurs and leaders. This episode was produced by Alex Graham, Ruth Edwards, and all brought together by our header podcast, Will Stollerman. See you next time.