The Wellbeing Expert: In an AI world, it's time for anti-industrial leadership | Steve Peralta, Unmind

0:00Steve, it's the 4th of October. You're in your car. Take us back to that moment. What happened? Hmm. Yeah, I've got a feeling I'm going to look back on that date and almost see it as the dividing line between first half of my life and second half of my life. In short, I guess I was cracked open, right? I was driving to Windsor. It was the second day of a series of talks that I was giving to leaders. um it had been quite intense week lots of work not enough sleep and i was driving i guess i was just you know focusing on the road thinking about the upcoming talk and then it was as if someone sort of got inside me and flicked a switch from on to off and it just felt like all of a sudden i was just ebbing away it was a very intense scary feeling i wasn't quite sure what was going on Wow.

0:57That sounds so scary and dangerous while you're driving. Well, very scary. I mean, I managed to pull over at a petrol station. So I didn't really know where I was. I was halfway between Beach, where I live, and Windsor. I didn't really know what to do. I couldn't go inside. I didn't have my wits about me. I didn't want to call my wife because I thought, you know, receiving a phone call from me thinking I'm dying, not knowing where I am, wouldn't be the best phone call to get. So I just sat there for a while. What was happening inside of your body? So, it's very difficult to describe, but it's as if I was dissolving and ebbing away.

1:36And I thought maybe it was a heart attack. I didn't know. Any other symptoms? My heart was racing. Okay. Your vision? What was happening with your vision? No, vision was, I mean, I was just, maybe I was just quite hyper-focused in on the situation. Right, right. And just started to feel like... Just, you know, I've never experienced before. I've never had things like panic attacks in my life. And this was just something very different for me. It was a kind of experience I didn't even know I could have, right? But I managed to pick up my phone, saw that it was an A &E 15 minutes away. I managed then, I mean, I don't know if it was a good decision or not, but drive to the A &E, had my hazards on, managed to get there, very confused, disoriented.

2:16How were you able to drive in this situation? With a lot of difficulty, but I was very slow, very slow. people were hooting but i just very slow got there i mean when i got there like i didn't know what to do i was very confused i parked outside the main entrance of the a &e initially and i was like okay this can't work and managed to get myself to a parking lot came in slumped over the thing they took me ecg sorry i'm just confused for a sec it sounds like you're bad enough to know that you need to call a &e yeah but you are good enough you've got your capacities to drive there still had my awareness it was as if I was watching it unfold as well wow okay yeah I mean it's it's a difficult experience to describe yeah wow so yeah ended up in A &E the same experience happened two more times over the next week what did they say at A &E when you got in there they weren't sure what it was we did various tests the one guy thought it might be epilepsy and the second time I came in they thought this is probably panic attacks which didn't seem to fit me but you know I can maybe elaborate a bit.

3:19And then the third time, panic attacks. But then from that third time, I started about a period of four months of the most intense fragility I could ever imagine. Like just getting from moment to moment was my task. So mental, emotional, physical fragility. And I have to ask, what did you do about the, I'm presuming that it was a client on your way to give a talk to? Like, were you able to get in touch with them? So what did I do? I somehow, when I was at A &E, managed to slack someone at my company and briefly told them, like, in a few sentences what was happening. Right. And they got a hold of the client.

4:02So the results of this first A &E trip were a bit confusing, not quite kind of hitting that nail on the head. And you mentioned it happened twice? Yeah, it happened two days later. Wow. I was about to take my dog for a walk. I was just standing in the driveway when all of a sudden it felt like I had pierced through the veil of like reality and what's on the other side. And I just felt this like strange, like seeing into the emptiness of things. And then the same thing started to happen again. Very intense. Luckily, my wife was there this time. She took me to A &E. Were you less scared of it happening the next times?

4:36At least I knew I could get through it. Right. Yeah. Are you able to better describe those subsequent episodes or was it still just like so bizarre? The doctors thought they were panic attacks. Okay. Extreme existential panic attacks. Yeah. They weren't panic attacks that arose out of like anxiety. They just all of a sudden just hit me. Wow, yeah. There's a bunch of stuff that was going on, which I'm happy to chat about, that I now know about. Yeah, yeah. But the main thing that happened was just this fragility. Wow. Extreme, extreme existential anxiety, physiological weird things going on, health anxiety because of all the weird things going on.

5:14And I just had to get through each moment. Right. And before we found out, and you've got a better idea now, and we will definitely get into that. But sticking with this point in time, what was your interpretation? I mean, even pulling through out the other end, the way you describe that piercing the veil. I mean, it sounds like you're on death's door. It sounds like you're losing consciousness. What's your interpretation having experienced it yourself? My interpretation then was maybe this is extreme burnout potentially. but it was much it was more than that it was a confluence and a coming together of various things which you know which i can i can chat more about that just reached a tipping point so let's get into that then so what has it turned out to be so i mean there's never going to be crystal clarity but a few things are going on so i had been for about two years really diving in deep to therapeutic work with a therapist and other sort of ways of really diving in deep to my to my childhood inner child work and surfacing like childhood like little t trauma but also some other things that happened to me more capital t trauma sort of later in my life and all the stuff was surfacing and i was working through that did you go to therapy as a result of these episodes to dive in no no no i was in i was seeing a therapist already anyway for the first time in my life um my therapist during this time was like a lifesaver like she saw me every day for 15 minutes in the morning just to like check in and it was amazing but so there was that stuff was already surfacing um i've since found out what i didn't know at the time but i had been accumulating probably over my whole life toxic levels of heavy metals and uh and toxins etc probably the reason being that i have this weird uh collection of genetic mutations which mean which means i don't detoxify properly unless there's proper support for that.

7:06Wow. Where do heavy metals come from? How can we... It comes from a lot of things. It can come from water sources, from foods, from... What kind of foods? Everything. I mean, a lot. It's probably especially non-organic foods. But also alcohol. I used to be, I guess, a rampant hedonist for a period of my life and I probably would have built up over time. But the reason why it built up, see, normally we would be able to excrete this out of our system. that my detox system wasn't working properly. And so what happens is your body as a protective mechanism starts to shunt the toxins or the heavy metals into your tissues, your brain and other tissues, so that it's not in your blood circulation, right?

7:47Right. Now what might have happened, and this is probably plausible, for the three months leading up to all of this going haywire, I'd been really focusing on my health, right? No alcohol, really healthy eating, et cetera, et cetera. and I might have unknowingly triggered like a detoxification process and sort of liberated those heavy metals from my tissues into my blood system but then not had the capacity to excrete them. And that might have played a big role in it as well. Right, okay. So there's that. And then there's 15 years of working very intensely in like very purpose-driven work with my whole heart and soul in it, like very intense.

8:29And, you know, I guess I was a striver and, you know, gritting through things. I think it all just came to a head. And happened to just be while you're in the car driving the worst, the worst times for this ad. But obviously there's never a good time, is there? And me doing my own kind of pattern matching with some of the other interviews I've had. I've heard other tragedies, these other sudden experiences that just seemingly come out of nowhere. And one story I remember in particular was Georgie Hyatt, the co-founder of Ritaro. and I think it happened to her when she was about to go up on stage.

9:01Right? So it's like you could be driving a car, you could be, you know, we're all so go, go, go. There never really is a good time. It literally feels like it comes out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The body keeps score, as they say, right? And the body will let you know, right? It will send you, I guess, these signals. You can look back retrospectively and maybe see some of the signs and symptoms. Right, right. And if potentially you ignore those for long enough, you will lose. So this is what I was going to ask you. So as much as we can say like, oh, you know, if you don't listen to your body, it will let you know and it won't be at a good, convenient time.

9:31I was actually going to connect that back to your story because you mentioned that it was out of nowhere. But now, retrospectively, what are those signs now in hindsight that you can point to? I mean, I've had signs and symptoms going back 20 something years and then I worked through them and so on. Right. But, you know, I had insomnia for 10 years. That's probably a classic sign. I had depression for about a few years in my early 20s. I've always had a strange sort of experience with my nervous system. Like I've had twitches and I just stutter and I've felt like quite sensitive to any sense of overload, being in front of screens, all that kind of stuff, right?

10:11So there was that, that sort of sensitivity.

10:17perhaps other signs were work-wise I'd felt myself sort of pulling back a bit for about two to three years and becoming somewhat disillusioned by the systemic factors that I felt like tethered to just by being in in the world right and that was creating this quite a weird tension for me so you know you know that kind of thing is a is a stage dealing towards burnout you know that sort of disconnection and so there was that as well um perhaps just common day today stuff like increased irritability and so those kinds of things right but i was also doing a lot of the right things you know it's like i i you know i'm a well-being specialist so i understand how to look after one's well-being right so i was prioritizing my sleep you know i wasn't the kind of guy that would work till midnight and so on I had I had some boundaries right but I would still work very intensely probably still doing 50 hour weeks and you know working intensely um but I'd prioritize my sleep I was eating healthily most of the time however sometimes that would then lead to me like you know perhaps drinking too much at a social event but I was still stuck in a bit of an imbalanced um interesting thing between the two so there were those signs was that uh like some sort of I don't know like overcompensation or but I like I mean I definitely I'm gonna really open up here as well right like I um definitely suffer from I think it's called like revenge like revenge doom scrolling yeah where um you where you're just like in bed at night and you're just kind of like scrolling and it's kind of like a revenge because apparently you don't feel like you've had enough time just to yourself during the day and so it's kind of like this silly self punishment of um uh of kind of like clawing something back for yourself so was that it for you like the drinking the power was it kind of like almost like a reward for being so good i think over the years it wasn't a conscious choice but it's your system trying to like self-correct let's say and what ends up happening which similar to what you've just described now we we swing between polarities like a wrecking ball rather than finding like the middle path of integration like the balance so that was I was going to come on to this as my next question I given you are a well-being expert the co-founder of an incredible wellness scale up which we're definitely going to talk all about as well how how how come the knowledge for you like wasn't enough because you're such a you know subject matter expert in this field you're armed with all the tools the information and yet you still suffered from this crash and burn yourself yeah i mean it's a good question and for many people they were surprised right when this happened to me yeah but i guess you know i'm a human being first everything else second third whatever i'm a human being so i think that's really important if anything my knowledge around well-being helped me maybe to understand what was going on when it was going on um and potentially that's helped with my recovery through this but i'm i'm a human being and i'm i'm vulnerable and what happened to me wasn't just it wasn't me doing the wrong things necessarily maybe it was even me trying to do too many of the right things right yeah and all of these other external factors of which we don't have control like all just coming together right like we we're holding a lot as human beings these days so my answer would be it happened to because I'm human.

13:46Interestingly, about a month before this happened to me, we were running a retreat in the Cotswolds for CHROs, which we do every half year or so. Nice. And we invited a man, Professor Vincent Deary. He's a psychologist. He's written a book called How We Break. But he said one line in his talk to the CHROs, he said, everyone is just one or two life events away from breaking and that line really stuck with me like it really stuck with me and it what it invites and then and then I broke like a month later right but what it invites I guess is humility um self-compassion and like compassion for others right and so I'm really interested now that you've had that experience you mentioned recovery what are you doing now to mitigate that risk even though we are still human we're still vulnerable there are still other things you mentioned like your sensitivities there's some foundational genetics I guess which like we can't or control but within the controllables how are you now living your life day to day sure so first of all I had to take five months off work right so like five months off work I couldn't work so that was part of it and I had to really just I was isolated at home luckily I had my wife and my dog there is like some source of support but there was just a chance just to just to be and to rest and to recover and maybe after a few months start to reflect but initially it was just like just being and getting through each moment so there's that since then i have so i'm prioritizing rest and recovery but not just as something you do after like smashing yourself like it's something you bake in to your day to your point like if you if you grind it out like you're going to either crash after that or you're going to find some way to compensate for that you know to try and find your time back so you need to like find integration through your day so that's one thing right um i did also dive deep into and that's not for everyone but i dove deep into my genetics i understand my vulnerabilities um i did hair mineral analysis tests i understand what's going on to a degree i then i'm on quite a targeted supplement protocol and a nutritional protocol for now it's certainly not what i want to continue forever but for now it's it's sort of a restoring some of the gaps that are in my my system yeah and any other like specifics in terms of your diet nutrition exercise i mean all that good stuff i can imagine so yeah i mean so exercise has been a part of my life for a while but what's been important for me during this period was to like listen to my body there was a time for the first few months so initially i couldn't exercise at all but after a few months i would try to go to the gym if i just jumped on the bike and just pedaled gently for five minutes my heart rate would go to like you know 180 so there was something severely wrong like autonomic dysregulation so i had to like okay just do i did yoga yeah initially that really helped now i've found a sort of you know zone two cardio and functional gentle strength work not not smashing it you know this is about working with where i'm at right now and i can imagine the deeper challenge being internal like mentally right especially as someone who's so ambitious, who's led this phenomenal scale up.

17:05Internally, the inner monologue, that voice, that compassion that you talk about of rest is not a reward. We just, again, vulnerable human beings, we still need to have this rest without having already smashed ourselves first, as you put it. So I can imagine that kind of inner monologue also being kind of a challenge to manage as well. Yeah, it was challenging. I mean, you know, I know all this stuff and it's what I talk about. And in some ways I was living it, but in other ways I wasn't. Like we've normalized things that shouldn't be normal. And so I was part of that still. And so it was more just a real tangible recognition or revelation of the stuff that I knew about that hadn't quite embedded into my way of living yet.

17:51So that perfectly segues into the next question, which was given you were already a leader in this softer leadership, this really kind of championing well-being. You led Unmind. Now that you've had, you were already doing all of that stuff before. So now that you have had that extreme personal experience yourself, how has that affected this mission that you're on? Quick one. So sorry to interrupt. I'm sure that you are on the edge of your seat listening to this interview. At least I hope so. I'm so aware of all the other podcasts that are already out there. So the fact that you've decided to tune in and listen to this one is not lost on me.

18:28If you can just go that one step further and hit that follow or subscribe button, doesn't cost a thing, takes two seconds. Now is your chance to do that. It means so much. Really appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Now let's get back to the interview. segues into the next question which was given you were already a leader in this um softer leadership this work really kind of championing well-being you you led on mind um now that you've had you were already doing all of that stuff before so now that you have had that extreme personal experience yourself how has that affected this mission that you're on yeah it's it's been um it's definitely going to affect my mission moving forward.

19:10Like I feel like I mentioned first half of life, second half of life. I feel like I'm in like the liminal stage between those two where I can feel something emerging and unfolding. And I think having gone through what I've gone through now, the intense suffering, it was so intense, has shifted slightly my orientation around what I do. Like I've always been about human flourishing. Like I've always been, I seem to have had this like pull towards that. Where do you think that comes from? Because I read your mission is human flourishing. I love the way that you phrase that. Where's that come from for you?

19:46Why is that your mission? I mean, if I'm just speaking candidly, I think from a very young age, I've always had this sensitivity to the sacredness of like life, let's say capital L, I've liked life, right? And I've been

20:04sensitive to even at that small age, that young age, like injustices or people being taken advantage of. I had that kind of thing as a young boy. I probably shouldn't admit this, but there were instances when I was five or six and this happened more than once where I'd punch other boys in the face for bullying someone else. I might not have gone about it in the most elegant, graceful way, right? Clumsy, five-year-old. But I was trying to stand up for people, right? Yeah. So I think I just have this kind of a sensitivity. Yeah. But that evolved over time. I mentioned earlier, I went through my own, my first sort of dark period of my life, late teens into early 20s, depression, insomnia, really struggling.

20:48And I came out of that. And I came out of it by learning about well-being, philosophy, spirituality, human potential, and so on, and applying that in my life. And then finding this newfound vitality and meaning and purpose in my early 30s. And so that, okay, fine, if I can do this for myself, I want to maybe help others do that. That sparked that trajectory. And then I became a coach and all the rest. and then the workplace direction that I think was triggered by my stepfather who found himself in hospital we were like standing by his bedside we thought it was a heart attack sounds quite similar to sort of my experience but in speaking to him in his bed he sort of open up about this leader that he has who was just like toxic and and soul destroying and how it had created this toxic culture at his work and how colleagues of his two had died by suicide like in the past six months and so it was causing a very real human impact and i saw how it was impacting him and our family and you know then extrapolating that out to other people and their families and and so it i guess it sort of lit a fire around it seems like workplaces are well they can either elevate your life and they have the potential to or they can destroy your life right and they seem to be doing and really create these ripple effects that i don't think these sorts of toxic bosses let's call them you know realize as you say it's kind of like the employees families their loved ones their friend how it kind of affects everyone else so nice sort of segueing into a little bit more we're going to come on to like unmind your business journey and everything but let's just kind of connect between your mission on this point around human flourishing to to the workplace and the industries at large why now is it more important than ever to be preaching about human first softer leadership that prioritizes well-being given everything that we've got going on in the world at the moment yeah sure i think it is very important and very necessary right now You know, you say everything that's going on in the world right now, and I alluded to this earlier.

23:07You know, we're holding and carrying a lot, and we just adapt to that, right? Well, we think we're adapting to that, but our nervous systems hold all of this, and sometimes it can just take one little thing to reach that tipping point, and we can break, right? So there's that.

23:26If we look at it more broadly and, like, systemically, you know, when we are overwhelmed and burnt out and stressed and carrying what we're carrying, one way we can respond, which is probably the more natural way under stress, is we contract, we self-contract, we become more isolated, become more sort of us versus them, me versus you. It's about my self-protection that can lead to polarization, all the stuff that we're seeing in the world right now. Exactly. so that's what's happening yeah um and i actually was thinking about this during covid and lockdown we were all going through trauma then right and i and i think i spoke about this to on another podcast way back then saying we can go one of two directions we're either going to become even more self-protective and us versus them or we can embrace our humanity by by connecting with our shared suffering and you know the suffering that i've gone through now I think that's helping me to connect to other people's suffering as well.

24:30So to answer your question, a more human-centric, more compassionate approach within organizations is essential given that, right? It's the antidote to everything that I've just described. It reconnects us to our shared humanity. It brings us towards one another. And connecting humanity with business, because, of course, since the industrial revolution, we've been optimised and greatly valuing our productivity, our output, our efficiency. We're kind of conditioned to operate like machines. So I'd love to hear, firstly, how can we kind of practically bring some of that humanity back as opposed to this very logical machine sort of operational way of thinking?

25:16and then I just want to connect that to kind of the business profits as well because I heard you say could caring for people be the ultimate profit strategy? So we have to kind of connect that back to capitalism as well, right? So two in one there. I think probably the most important point of leverage initially is paradigm. It's like actually removing the veil and seeing the paradigm that we're in. You know, you mentioned since the Industrial Revolution, I think since then we've been in this mechanistic paradigm, you know, through scientific management and all the rest, where we see organizations as machines and we see employees as cogs serving that machine.

25:54And we just need to look at our language. You mentioned some of the, you know, efficiency and output and optimization. That's like, that's machine speak, right? And it's so normal in our organization. So we need to see it and then recognize how that is leading us to show up for ourselves and each other. Like we treat ourselves like machines. I just, the way we're working, which like I said, you know, we're normalizing a way of working that's not in line with our biology and our human needs, right? Like we're treating ourselves like machines first of all. Then leaders are treating employees like cogs and machines.

26:29You know, we're not machines. It's sort of obvious. so first of all awareness recognize that we have this paradigm but that that's not a reflection of of reality we are humans with very real human needs organizations are living ecosystems with living breathing human beings and if we can like let that land and then recognize that you know your organization depends on how those human beings are and this is a terrible word i can't think of a bad one right now like functioning basically say living showing up like are they coming alive in your organization are they flourishing the answer is yes if their human needs are being met they're being treated like human beings like seen and if they matter and if if they feel like they have some autonomy and if there's a sense of belonging and psychological safety and etc etc like treat like human beings then flourishing will not just elevate their well-being but performance as well you know when we feel safe and respected and honored we are in a state of you know physiological balance and our brains work better we're more creative we're able to collaborate more we're able to recover better we're more resilient at the collective level like that's how we try to do our best work what you've just triggered in my mind is this talk of like kind of human versus machine where we're sat now currently in 2025 we have got AI robotics there is a real possibility that actual machines are coming and so what's the future for humans do we actually have um could we take a more optimistic view and say actually now that we have actual machines coming instead of trying to get humans operating in this way since the industrial revolution can we now actually afford to be more human and lean into that yeah I mean And I think there's that paradox in there.

28:21I think there is the opportunity to lean even more into our humanity, but only if we make those decisions now, right? If we don't and if we just stay entrenched in that mechanistic model, then all it's going to do is intensify that, right? And so, like, I think it's a really important conversation to be having. A few weeks back, a CEO of, I think it's Fiverr, he wrote an email to his company talking, you know, trying to do like a reality check, like, you know, AI is coming for your jobs. And I guess it's doing to like, to shake people up and wake them up. And then he was talking about like, you know, you have to work faster, harder, all this kind of stuff, right?

29:02And like, my response is like, towards what? You know, towards what in? Just for the sake of it, like, you know, so. We're not playing games we can win if you do that. You're never going to outsmart or outrun AI. Of course. So how can we win? And with that in mind, because obviously about the threat of AI coming and taking our jobs. Like, what are the opportunities that we can lean into as individuals?

29:27I mean, I think as leaders, as individuals, look, we know AI is moving forward at pace, right? It's still human beings for now, like, in charge, as it were, but, you know, very soon that's not going to be the case. So how we approach it now is important. We need to just think like high technology, high life. And very often we're not. You know, it's just high technology and the pace of acceleration of technology is the be all and end all. But we're not considering the impact this is having on humanity. Is this going to be pro like human life or the opposite? Is it going to help us to better meet our human needs?

30:06And those are the questions we should be asking and design with that in mind. So I do want to connect that to capitalism because your great quote of could caring for your people be the ultimate profit strategy. I'd love to hear you expand on that and B, I'd love to get your take on how that can all fit into that capitalist system. Like, do we need to just completely write those rules to your point on this Fiverr email of like, to what end? And how is, like, where, which direction are we going in a capitalist society when it is all about the profit and the bottom line? Sure. I remember, I think it was a post I wrote or something, and I asked that question.

30:48I asked that question more to meet people where they're at, I would say. And the answer is, yes, it can be the ultimate profit strategy. So let's first, like, address that. It can be, and there's a lot of research to back this up. Like we know that, I don't know if you've come across the happiness index. It's like the top 100 companies that prioritize employee well-being, happiest employees. We know they outperform the S &P 500 like year on year. It works, right? There's research from Oxford University that's just like proved it's a causal effect from well-being to performance. It's not up for argument.

31:24We know that that is the case, right? and it makes sense like for the reasons I said earlier when we are healthier when we feel safe when we are in more of like a you know communal setting and our human needs are met we we think better we're more creative we etc etc like I said right so so what gets in the way of that like given we've got that research those stats why isn't every company operating that way and just to caveat this obviously an entrepreneurial kind of show with startup founders kind of listening so what also can like entrepreneurs early stage startup founders sort of take away from this yeah i think why it hasn't landed as well as it should just based on the research is that maybe some people aren't truly up to date with the research and there's this false dichotomy between results between prioritizing results and prioritizing people people see it as an either all.

32:17And I mean, I think that's quite prevalent in many organizations, especially your more market-driven hierarchical organizations. But that's false, right? So what people end up doing is prioritize results at the expense of people. If you do that, people will burn out. They will disengage. That's going to have an impact on your overall performance as a company. But equally, if you just get too soft and just prioritize people that don't focus on results, then you're not going to have enough drive and motivation. You're going to lose focus on your goals and all the rest. So that's not the way to do it.

32:52It's a both and. You need to prioritize results and you need to prioritize people. And the middle ground of that for me is human flourishing. How can we unleash human potential in our organizations? We can do that by helping people flourish. Yeah. External investors can often exacerbate that or they can sometimes, that's unfair, they can sometimes kind of push leaders more to the results bucket as opposed to the people and that kind of dichotomy that you describe. I'd love to just get your take on that, especially if there are kind of VC-backed entrepreneurs listening into this. And of course, we'll segue onto your story with Unmind from that as well.

33:29I know that was another VC-backed scale-up. So how do investors affect that sense of leadership for founders? And how can they navigate the challenges? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I guess first of all, just to say that, you know, just using my own company on mine, you know, we wouldn't have grown at the scale that we grew without our investors. So they've played an important role in our trajectory. And venture capital comes with demands and expectations that can be difficult to navigate. And they can be difficult to navigate, especially if you are a mission-driven business. And so it's important to recognize and to go into that with open eyes.

34:15So that's really important. Give us an overview of where you got to with our mind. Because as far as I'm aware, it's kind of series B. If you can give us a quick overview of sort of the size, the investment, just to help kind of frame that concept. Yeah, sure, sure. So, you know, we're nine years into our journey.

34:35Shall I tell you a bit about the trajectory of it? Well, just kind of sticking with like how you also navigated kind of those VC presses. Sure. Did you get to kind of Series B level with online? Yeah, we've just raised recently as well. Yeah, so it is very challenging. It brought with it real challenges, right? I mean, I guess for maybe the first few years, we didn't really experience those challenges as much. We grew quite organically, it seemed. And then during COVID, things just skyrocketed. And I guess we found ourselves on perhaps an unrealistic growth trajectory, which then sets up further expectations.