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

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In this week's episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Steve Peralta, the Co-founder of Unmind, the mental wellbeing platform helping over 2.5M employees prioritise mental health and build cultures where people thrive. Clients include the likes of British Airways, Nationwide, Disney and Mediacom. Now, as a coach and speaker, Steve Peralta helps purpose-driven leaders bring out the best in a way that is human, intentional, and generative.

In this interview, Steph and Steve discuss:

• The moment that changed everything for Steve

• Why human-centred leadership is the way forward in an AI world

• Connecting mission-driven business with the pressures of VC

Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript:

SM: Steve, it's October 4th. You're in your car. Take us back to that moment. What happened?

SP: I've got a feeling I'm gonna 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. I was driving to Windsor. It was the second day of a series of talks that I was giving to leaders. It had been quite intense week, lots of work, not enough sleep. 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 and flicked a switch from on to off, and it just felt like all of a sudden I was just ebbing away. So it was a very intense, scary feeling. I wasn't quite sure what was going on.

SM: That sounds so scary and dangerous while you're driving.

SP: Well, very scary. I mean, I managed to pull over at a petrol station. I didn't really know where I was. I was halfway between 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 wanna 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.

SM: What was happening inside of your body?

SP: So it's very difficult to describe, but it's it's as if I was dissolving and ebbing away. And I thought maybe it was a heart attack. I I didn't know.

SM: Any other symptoms?

SMP: My heart was racing. I was just maybe I was just quite hyper focused in in on the situation and myself and just started to feel like... 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.

But I managed to pick up my phone, saw there was an A&E 15 minutes away. I managed to then I mean, I don't know if it was a good decision or not, but drive to the A&E, have my hazards on, managed to get there very confused, disoriented.

SM: How were you able to drive in this situation?

SP: With a lot of difficulties, but I was just about cold. Very slow. Very slow. People were hooting, but I just very slow got there. I mean, when when I got there, like, I didn't know what to do. I was very confused. I parked outside the main entrance to the A&E initially, and I was like, okay. This can't work and managed to get myself to 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 and E Yeah. But you are good enough. You got your capacities to drive there. Absolutely. I still had my Yeah.

Like, awareness. It was as if I was, like, watching it unfold as well. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, it's it's it's a difficult experience to describe. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah, ended up in A and E. The same experience happened two more times over the next week.

What did they say at A and E when you got in there? They weren't sure what it was. We did various tests. One guy thought it might be epilepsy. Then the second time I came in, they thought this is probably panic attacks, which didn't seem to fit me, but, you know, I mean, I can maybe elaborate a bit.

And 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 was my task. So mental, emotional, physical fragility. And I have to ask, what did you do about the I I'm presuming that it was a client on your way to give a talk to.

Like Yeah. Were you able to get in touch with them? So what did I do? I I somehow, when I was at A and E, managed to Slack someone at my company Yeah. And briefly told them, like, in a few sentences what was happening Right.

And they got ahold of the client. So the results of this first A and E trip were a bit confusing, not quite kinda get hitting the nail on the head. And you mentioned it happened twice Yeah. It happened times. Happened two days later.

Wow. I was about to take my dog for a walk. I was just standing in the driveway, and 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 and E. Were you less scared at happening the next times? At least I knew I could get through it. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you able to better describe those subsequent episodes, or was it still just, like, so bizarre? The 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 almost then just hit me. Wow.

Yeah. There's a bunch of stuff that was going on, which I'm happy to to chat about, like, that I now know about. Right? Yeah. But the the main thing that happened was just this fragility, extreme extreme existential anxiety, physiological weird things going on, health anxiety because of all the weird things going on, and 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 Yeah. What was your interpretation? I mean, even pulling through Yeah. Out the other end, you 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 Yeah. Was maybe this is extreme burnout potentially, but it's 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?

They just reached a tipping point. So let's get into that then. So what does it turned out to be? So, I mean, there's never gonna 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 for the first time in my life. My therapist during this time was like a lifesaver. Like, she saw me every day for fifteen minutes in the morning just to, like, check-in, and it was amazing. Great. But So there was that.

Stuff was already surfacing. I've since found out I didn't know at the time, but I had been accumulating probably over my whole life toxic levels of heavy metals and, and toxins, etcetera. Probably the reason being that I have this weird, collection of genetic mutations, which mean which means I don't detoxify properly, and this is proper support for that. Wow. Where do heavy metals come from?

How can we Comes from a lot of things can come from water sources, from foods, from What kind of foods? Everything. I mean, a lot. It's probably especially nonorganic foods, But also alcohol, I used to be, I guess, a ramp and headedness for, you know, a period of my life, and I probably would have built up over time. But the reason why it built up so normally, we would be able to excrete this out of our system, but my detox system wasn't working properly.

And so what happens is your body as a protective mechanism starts to shunt the toxins or heavy metals into your tissues, your brain and other tissues so that it's not in your blood circulation. Right? Right. Now what might have happened, and this is probably plausible, for the three months leading up to all of this going haywire Yeah. I've been really focusing on on my health.

Right? I no no alcohol, really healthy eating, etcetera, etcetera. And I might have unknowingly triggered like a detoxification process and and sort of liberated those heavy metals from my tissues into my blood system, but then not have the capacity to excrete them. And that might have played a a big role in it as well. Right.

Okay. So there's that and then there's fifteen years of working very intensely Yeah. In, like, very purpose driven work Yeah. With my whole heart and soul in it. Like, very intense and, you know, I guess I was a I was a striver and, you know, griting 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 cofounder of Rotaro, and, I think it happened to her when she was about to go up on stage. Right? So it's like you could be driving a car.

You could be, you know, we're also go go go. There never really is a good time. So And it literally feels like it comes out of nowhere. Yeah. You know, just yeah.

Yeah. The body keeps score, as they say. Right? And, and the body will let you know. Right?

It was essentially against these signals. You can look back retrospectively and maybe see some of the signs and symptoms. Right. Right. And if if potentially you ignore those long enough, you know This is what I was gonna 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. I was actually gonna connect that back to your story because you mentioned that it was out of nowhere. But now retrospectively, what are those signs now high in hindsight that you Yeah. That you can point to? I mean, I've had signs and symptoms going back twenty something years, and then I work through them and and so on.

Right? But, you know, I had insomnia for ten years. That's probably a classic sign. I had depression for about a few years in my early twenties. I've always had a strange sort of experience with my nervous system.

Like, I've had twitches and I used to stutter, and I've felt, like, quite sensitive to any any sense of overload, you know, being in front of screens, like, all that kind of stuff. Right? So it was that, that sort of sensitivity. Perhaps 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 leading towards burnout, you know, that sort of disconnection and Yeah. Stage. And so there was that as well. Perhaps just common day to day stuff like increased irritability and so those kinds of things.

Right? But I was also doing a lot of the right things. Yeah. You know, it's like I I you know, I'm 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 fifty hour weeks and, you know, working intensely. But I'd practice 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 Interesting. Thing between the two.

So there were those signs and symptoms. 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, definitely suffer from I think it's called, like, revenge, like, revenge doomscrolling Yeah. Where, you where you're just, like, in bed at night, and you're just kinda, like, scrolling.

And it's kind of, like, a revenge because you apparently, you don't feel like you've had enough time just to yourself during the day. Yeah. And so it's kind of, like, this silly self punishment of, of kinda like clawing something back for yourself. So was that it for you? Like, the drinking the part, was it kind of like almost like a reward for being so good?

I think over the years, I mean, 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 so it's what you've just described now, we we swing between polarities like a wrecking ball, right, rather than finding, like, the the middle path of integration. Like the balance. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was I was gonna come on to this as my next question. Like, given you are a well-being expert, the cofounder of an incredible wellness scale up, which we're definitely gonna talk all about as well, how how how come the knowledge for you, like, wasn't enough? Because you're such an, you know, subject matter expert in this field. You're armed with all the the tools, the information, and yet you still suffered from this crash and burn yourself. Yeah.

I mean, it's a 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.

And 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, and potentially that's helped with my recovery through this. But I'm I'm a 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 happens because I'm human. Interestingly, 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, a 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 event life events away from breaking. And that line really stuck with me.

Like, it really stuck with me. And it didn't what it invites and then and then I broke, like, a month later. Right? But what it invites, I guess, is humility, 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 thing you mentioned like your sensitivities. There's some Yeah.

Foundational genetics, I guess, which, like, we can't all 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. Wow.

Right? So it looked like five months off work, and I couldn't work. So that was part of it, and I had to really just I was just isolated at home. Luckily, I had my wife and my dog there as, like, some source of support. But there was just a chance just to just to be and to rest and to recover and 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 you bake into your day. To your point, like, if you if you grind it out, like, you're going to either crash or whatever. You're gonna find some way to, like, 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? Mhmm. I did also dive deep into and not it's not for everyone, but I dove deep into my genetics.

Yes, sir. I understand my vulnerabilities. I did hemeral analysis test. 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 wanna 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 our 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, one eighty.

So Oh. There was something severely wrong, like, autonomic dysregulation. So I had to, like, okay. Just do I I did yoga. Yeah.

Initially, that really helped. And now I 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 internally, but in a monologue, that voice, that compassion that you talk about of rest is not a reward. Yeah. We just, again, vulnerable human beings, we still need to have this rest without having already, like, smashed ourselves first as you put it. So I can imagine that kinda in a monologue also being kind of a challenge to manage as well.

Yeah. It was it was challenging. I mean, you know, I know all this stuff Yeah. And it's what I talk about. And in some ways, I was living it, but in other ways, I wasn't.

Like, we we'd we've normalized things that shouldn't be normal, like and so I was part of that 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, like, embedded into my way of living here. Segues into the next question, which was given you were already a leader in this, softer leadership, this work really kind of championing well-being. Yeah. You you led Unmind.

Now that you've had you're already doing all of that stuff before. So now that you have had that extreme personal experience yourself Yeah. How has that affected this mission that you're on? Quick one. So sorry to interrupt.

So I'm sure that you are on the edge of your seat listening 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. If you can just go that one step further and hit that follow or subscribe button, button, doesn't cost a thing. It 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. It segues into the next question, which was given you were already a leader in this, softer leadership, this work really kind of championing well-being.

Yeah. You you led Unmind. Now that you've had you're already doing all of that stuff before. So now that you have had that extreme personal experience yourself, Yeah. How has that affected this mission that you're on?

Yeah. It's it's been, it's definitely going to affect my my mission moving forward. Like, I 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, unfolding. I think having gone through what I've gone through now, the the intense suffering, it was just so intense, has has shifted slightly my orientation around what I do.

Like, I've always been about human flourishing. Like, I've always been I've I've seem to have had this, like, pull towards that. Where do you think that comes from? Because I read your mission is to is human flourishing. I love the way that you phrase that.

Where's that come from for you? Why is that your mission? I I mean, from 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 of, like, life. Right? And I've been sensitive to and even if that that's that's small age, that young age, like, injustices or or people being taken advantage of.

Like, I had that kind of thing as a young boy. I mean, so I probably shouldn't admit this, but there were instances when I was five or six and this happened more than once where I punch other boys in the face for bullying someone else. So I so I might not have gone about it in in the most elegant, graceful way. Right? It's clumsy, fireable.

But but I was trying to stand up for people. Right? Yeah. So I think I just have this kind of a That fire was in it. Sensitivity.

Yeah. But but that evolved over time. I mentioned earlier, I I went through my own my first sort of dark period of my life, late teens into early twenties, depression, insomnia, really struggling. And I came out of that, and I came out of it by learning about well-being, philosophy, spirituality, human potential, and and so on and applying that in my life, and then finding, like, this newfound vitality and meaning and purpose, you know, in my early thirties. And so that and, like, if I can do this for myself, I wanna maybe help others do that.

So that that sparked that trajectory. Yeah. And then I, you know, became a 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. So, like, it sounds quite similar to sort of my my experience. But in speaking to him in his in his bed, he sort of opened 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 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 in 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 it 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 kinda like the employee's 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 gonna come on to, like, unmind your business journey and everything, but let's just kinda connect between your mission on this point around human flourishing Yeah.

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

Right? So there's that. If 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 we can respond, which is probably the the more natural way under stress is we contract. We, you know, we self contract. We be 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, that all the stuff that we're seeing in the world right now. Exactly. So that's what's happening. Yeah. And I 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 I've gone through now, I think that's helping me to connect to other people suffering as well.

So to answer your question, a more human centric, more compassionate approach within organizations is essential given that. Right? It's it's the antidote to everything that I've just described. Yeah. It reconnects us to our shared humanity.

It brings us towards Yeah. One another. And connecting humanity with business because, of course, since the industrial revolution, we've been optimized and greatly value valuing, like, our our productivity, our output, our efficiency. We're kind of conditioned to operate like machines. Yeah.

So I'd love to hear, firstly, how can we kind of practically bring some of that, like, humanity back as opposed to this, like, very logical machine sort of operational way of thinking. And, and then I just wanna 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 kinda connect that back to capitalism as well. Right? So two in one there.

I think the probably the most important point of leverage initially is is paradigm. It's like actually removing the veil and seeing the paradigm that we're in. You know, you mentioned, since industrial revolution. I think since then, we've been in this mechanistic paradigm, you know, through scientific management and all the rest Mhmm. Where we see organizations as machines and we see employees as cogs serving that machine.

Everything 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 we need to see it and then recognize how that is leading us to show up for ourselves and each other.

Like, we 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. It's not in line with our biology and our human needs. Right? Like, we're treating ourselves like machines, first of all.

Yeah. The lead leaders are treating employees like Yeah. Cogs and machines. You know, we're we're not machines. I said 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. Yeah. 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. But it's to 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 and 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 etcetera etcetera, like treat like human beings, then flourishing will 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, phys 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 at the collective level. Like, that's how we Trying to do our best work. Yeah. What you've just triggered in my mind is this talk of, like, kinda 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. Yeah. And so what's the future for humans? Do we actually have, 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 Yeah. Can we now actually afford to be more human and lean into that?

Yeah. I mean, I think there's that paradox in there. I think there is the opportunity to lean even more into our humanity, but 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 gonna 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, yeah, I guess it's doing to, like, to shake people up and wake them up. And then then he was talking about, like, you know, you have to work faster, harder, all this kind of stuff.

Right? And, like, my response to it is, like, towards what? You know, towards what end? Just for the sake of it. Like you know?

So We're We're not playing games we can win if you do that. You're never gonna outsmart or outsmart AI. Of course. So how can we win? And with that in mind, because I was just thinking about the threat of AI coming and taking our jobs, like, what are the opportunities that we can lean into as individuals?

And I think as leaders, as individuals, look, we we we know AI is 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 gonna 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, you know, acceleration technology is the be all and end all. But when we're not considering the impact this is having on humanity, is this gonna be pro, like, human life or or the opposite? Is it gonna help us to better meet our human needs?

And those are the questions we should be asking and and design with that in mind. So I do wanna connect that to capitalism because your great quote of could caring for your people be the ultimate profit strategy. I'd love to, a, 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? Yeah.

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. I asked that question more to meet people where they're at, I would say. And and the answer is yes.

It can be the ultimate profit strategy. So let's 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 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 and P 500, like, year on year. It works. Right? There's a research from Oxford University. It's just, like, proved it's a causal effect from well-being to performance.

When like, we it's not it's not up for argument. We 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 more of like a, you know, communal setting and our human needs are met, we we think better. We're more creative.

We etcetera, etcetera, 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 kinda 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. These people see it as an either or. And, I mean, I think that's quite prevalent in many organizations, especially your more market driven hierarchical organizations.

Yeah. That that's that's false. Right? If you just so what people end up doing is prioritize results at the expense of people. Mhmm.

If you do that, people will burn out. They will disengage. That's gonna have an impact on your overall performance as a company. But but equally, if you just get, you know, too soft and just prioritize people that don't focus on results, then you're not gonna have enough drive and motivation. You're gonna lose focus on, you know, your goals and all the rest.

So that's not the way to do it. It's a both end. Mhmm. You need to prioritize results and you need to prioritize people. And the middle ground of that for me is human flourishing.

Mhmm. Like, 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 some I shouldn't that's unfair.

They can sometimes kinda 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, you know, your take on that, especially if there are kind of VC backed, you know, entrepreneurs listening into this. And, and, of course, we'll segue onto your story with Unmind from that as well as I know that was another VC backed scale up. So how how do kind of investors affect that sense of leadership for founders, and how can they navigate the challenges? For sure.

I mean, I guess, first of all, just to say that, you know, just using my own company and mine, you know, we wouldn't have grown at the at the scale that we grew without our investors. So they've, you know, 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, you know, a mission driven business. And so it's important to recognize and to go into that with open eyes.

So that's that's really important. Give us an overview of where you got to with our mind. Because I'm 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 that conversation. Sure.

Sure. So, you know, we're we're nine years into our journey. We can I tell you a bit about the the trajectory of We're just kinda sticking with, like, how how you also navigated kind of those VC presses? Like Sure. Sure.

Did you get to kind of series b level with online? Yeah. We've just raised recently as well. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So it is very challenging. It brought with it brought with it real challenges. Right? I mean, I guess for the 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 we were we found ourselves on perhaps an unrealistic growth trajectory, which is then, sets up further expectations. Right? And so it was it was very difficult to hold the tension of mission and metrics.

Mission and metrics. Like, that was the very real tension. And so we had to navigate that as a business. We couldn't, like, pretend it didn't exist. And I think that's how we decided to approach it.

We were very honest about it. We named it. We spoke about it as leaders. We spoke about it to the whole organization, and spoke about it in in a mature way. Right?

And we went through, like, a a a cultural transformation, which I'm happy to chat about as well around all of this. But I think that's how we had to navigate it. It didn't make it less difficult, and we certainly didn't approach it perfectly. And, you know, we there were challenges throughout throughout the whole journey. But we approached by saying, okay.

To my point that I've just mentioned, we are going to prioritize our metrics, our results, and we are going to prioritize our people's you know, we are a mission driven business. This is what we are about. We can't make it an either or. It's impossible to do that perfectly in balance all the time, so there'll be times where you probably swing. But as much as possible, we wanted to to do both.

We didn't just talk about that. We we baked it into our structure as an organization, into how we operated as an organization. So, you know, we had a we had something called metrics that matter, which were like a a core seven or eight KPIs for the business, and they were, like, split between your traditional results metrics, but also our people metrics. And we held ourselves accountable Yeah. Both.

Like, we reported to the board on on both. Nice. Okay. There's one thing I'll just mention just to bring it to life. One thing we did we've been doing for past few years is we ask our employees, we did, I think, once a month initially, but then once a quarter.

We asked them one simple question. What impact is working at Unmind having on your mental health and well-being? And you can answer from very negative up to very positive. It's a five point like a scale. Mhmm.

And, you know, I set the goal that we wanted to be a 100% net positive. Now that's probably idealistic, and it it is somewhat idealistic. I think the global average is around 10 to 15%. Most people are being negatively impacted by their work culture. At our at our worst, we were sitting at around 50, and at our best, around 80% net positive Yeah.

Whilst also obviously achieving our Right. Our other metrics. I love that. Are there any other specific tips around people management? As much as I love those check ins, it's almost like a bit of, dare I say, kind of a bit more of a lagging indicator, right, to check-in afterwards to see how they're feeling.

What did you implement on a more sort of day to day basis to make sure you were sort of looking after your people during that really rapid stay locked phase? Yeah. I think one important part of it is having leaders actually believe this and then role model it and talk about it. So that that's one side of it. You know, I was in I'm in the executive team, but to have someone really championing well-being within the executive team, I think, is powerful.

Yeah. Nice. It wasn't like a prescriptive program. So I mean, we we ran initiatives. You know, we ensured that, you know, we were checking with each other as human beings, but it it was more The culture.

It was more the culture that we built. And and there was a one specific thing that we did, which I can chat a bit more about. But it's it's more what you talk about. Mhmm. It's the conversation that you keep alive as an organization.

So it can't just be lip service. Like, employees need to see that you actually do care about Yes. Or all of those behaviors. Exactly. There's something called psychosocial safety climate.

It's a it's a mouthful. Love that. But it's the degree to which employees believe US leaders care about their well-being. And it's been labeled the cause of causes when it comes to engagement and employee well-being and performance and retention and all the rest. So people need to believe that you actually care.

Yeah. It can't just be a tactic. And that came you know, the question you asked me earlier about, is it the ultimate profit strategy? Yes. It can be, but I'm almost tired of having to, like, prove it's Oh, yeah.

It can be a profit strategy. Like, it's the human thing to do. And if it's doesn't come from that place and it's it's not really caring. Right? And what was the specific thing that you mentioned before?

You said there was one specific thing. I'd love to hear about that. Yeah. And this has this has been quite a pivotal part of our journey, really. And it also relates to, well, it relates just to our journey, the challenges we face, and how we navigated them.

But like I said, we had hypergrowth during COVID. Right? We went from about three years and, you know, 30 people, organic growth to not that long later, maybe twelve or so months later, 180 people. Our sales cycle dramatically reduced. We brought on loads and loads of clients, like millions of users.

It was it was quite a massive shift. Yeah. However, as you know, this happened during a time where we're not with each other, you know, face to face. We went from a very human, like, intimate kind of culture to now all of a sudden Mhmm. We just, pixels on the screen.

Mhmm. As a leader, I found it really strange. I was very close with everyone, and then all of a sudden, 180 employees. I didn't know most people. But we're having to keep up with the demand.

We we gave access to the NHS, all employees for free, so, like, another 2,000,000 people on the platform, and it was a super intense period. And I think what happened is that we found ourselves almost like outgrowing where we were at, but we had no chance to almost come up for a year and reassess. Coming out of lockdown, when we were able to then come together as a, you know, in person, we flew everyone in from, like, New York and Australia. London office came in and we all we came into our office. We ran a an off-site.

But there was something that I that we did. I'd had a sense that that what was working before wasn't working, but we couldn't quite put our finger on what it was. And I had this idea that perhaps it was our culture and it was what was once our strength was maybe holding us back, but I, you know, I couldn't, verify it. So what we decided to do was this I immersed myself deeply into something called competing values framework, which is what the name says, competing values with an organization. So, like, clan culture versus market culture.

You can understand what that is. And, like, hierarchy versus innovation and adhocracy. Like, they they compete against one another. And you and you can effectively assess your culture and the degree to which these four show up Yeah. In your culture.

Now what what we decided to do was run something called the organizational cultural assessment inventory. Normally, you just do it with leaders. And as a leadership team, you assess your culture. And interestingly, you also then define what your ideal culture would be, like, what will help us achieve our goals as a business now. But we decided to do it without all of our employees.

And we did this, and we ran the session where, you know, we revealed the results. And what came out was that everyone, like, all it was maybe different degrees, but everyone assessed our culture as extremely high clan culture. So that's all about kindness and collaboration and humanity, but good stuff. Yeah. And then quite low in the others.

So what happens is you spread 100 points across these four. We had, like, 70 something points to clan and then small across the others. Right. But interestingly, where people wanted to go was dramatically reduce clan and go more into market a bit. So it's like, you know, forty, twenty, and then go more into adhocracy, which is all about innovation and autonomy and then still keep low hierarchy.

But what we then had was a map so we could now talk about it with, like, clarity. This is what we feel is going wrong for us right now. Yeah. We had to almost kill our darlings. Like, we had to, like, realize that what was our strength was now our weakness.

And so then over the next eighteen months, we had this map. We want to become this kind of culture. It wasn't a prescriptive program. It was talking about it, having a common vision, a common goal, making, like, a public commitment. And then within eighteen months, we had achieved that Yeah.

Culture time. Wow. Incredible. Makes a ton of sense given the company shifted so much. It's going through this huge scale up journey.

Obviously, you're not gonna be the same, let alone with a global pandemic in the mix. And I appreciate you sharing, like, a really clear structured framework to be like, look. Let's get it all out here. Map out this quadrant around the whole company. And just those basics of clarity, and the clarity and commitment, I'll say, is those two c's.

Right? Like, the clarity of this is the direction that we're going in, clearly communicated. You all know this. This is where we're going. And we're all adults, and you can kinda, to a degree, you know, let people kind of figure it out for themselves.

So with just sticking with this kind of hypergrowth phase, obviously, VC enabled you to go through this incredible journey. Do you have any thoughts on like, I'm sure you're super grateful, and Unmind wouldn't be what it is today without them. I I'd love to get your take as a VC backed founder and gone gone through not only this insane scale up phase, but also being such a champion for wellness plus your own personal tragedies in the mix as well. Do you have any thoughts on alternative financing options for ambitious entrepreneurs? Yeah.

I mean, I'm I'm certainly not an expert in it, and I haven't had reason to explore it too much today, but I think maybe in the future I might. So I think it's important to recognize that venture capital helps you scale quickly, but it comes with some trade offs like like we've mentioned already. Right? So I think as a founder, early stage founder, know what's really important to you. And I think especially if you are like a mission driven business, it can be quite difficult to hold that tension like I mentioned earlier.

Right? And so there are alternatives, and I think those alternatives are becoming more people becoming more aware of them and becoming more popular. You know, there's there's steward ownership, for example, where, you know, you set the company up structurally, where the stewards of the mission have voting rights, not shareholders. Right? So that in itself can help people who are committed to the mission direct the company's, trajectory.

I said something like that for How would you quantify that, though? Because in investment, you can easily quantify this is how much money I'm putting in. These are how many shares I'm effectively buying. Stewards of mission. It's I mean, it's I'm not saying this is it's it's not necessarily Sort of.

Gonna be right for everyone. Right? But for example, Patagonia tops that model. So then you you reinvest the profits back into the business, into your mission. Like, it's it's a different structure, but depends what your values are and goals as an organization.

So that's that's something quite out there. Then you get, like, I guess, founder friendly loans where you don't have to give away control like you might have to within venture capital. It's like those are options that people can explore. Right? Mhmm.

It's more like sort of sharing revenue, potentially. There's obviously this stuff has been around for a while, crowdfunding. I would just invite people to to explore and do their research. Do you think any of these other options give you, like, as much money as VC can? Because, obviously, crowdfunding, angels, loans, none of these kinda match those millions, multimillions that VCs can deploy.

That's the thing. So you need to you need to know what's important to you. Like, VCs give you that capacity to grow quickly. Right? If you are someone that recognizes the potential risks in that and you want to grow more sustainably, then there are other options.

But even within, like, more sort of traditional investing, you know, there's impact investing where, you know, maybe they're more aligned to your mission. So there there are options out there. The invitation is just to explore it. How do you reconcile that hypergrowth aggressive VC model with, say, for example, that Fiverr CEO that you mentioned earlier, which was, you know, racing against AI, and you brought up that interesting point, like, to what end? So, yes, there might be those ambitions to secure millions from VCs, but does that always have kind of a beneficial outcome just by getting there kind of faster?

No. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have a beneficial outcome. It depends on what people regard as success. Right? Yeah.

And it'll be different from person to person. I'm not saying everyone has to have altruistic motives. Right? So it depends. Yeah.

It depends. But it certainly won't always get you towards the and sometimes that can also lead to the, closing down of your business. Right? You know? So Yeah.

So where is OnMind at today? You've had an incredible growth journey. Give us kind of paint us a bit of a picture of sort of the profile, the size, number of offices? We, so our head office is in is in London. We have an office in New York.

We've got a small office in Sydney. Size wise, we are smaller smaller than we used to be, so we're sitting at around a 110 employees now. We are focusing more on sustainable growth and profitability now. We were certainly in that heady growth at all costs world for for some time. I do not think we're approaching things more mindfully.

Taking a bit more of a breath now. Yes. Sure. That's good. It's it's a different kind of trajectory Yeah.

Whilst still wanting to achieve a mission. I mean, you can also have profit and mission go hand in hand. Right? You know, if you can grow and reach more people and do it, you know, with your values still front and center, they can they can work together. Exactly.

So we were trying to do that. I love that. Yeah. I love the sound of that. Penultimate question.

This is one of the burning questions I just have to make sure that I ask you. Given a lot of what we talk about and your subject matter expertise is around well-being, empathy, caring. These are typically feminine connotations. How do clients kind of react to you championing that kind of softer leadership coming from not only a white man, but, you know, I hope you don't mind me saying kind of a fairly sort of macho guy as well. Right?

Like, do you ever get those more sort of testosterone fueled, more aggressive types that won't take it, or does it kinda land better coming out of your mouth than, say, for example, mine? Very good question. I guess that well, the the truthful answer is that it it's sometimes gone both ways. Right? There are some audiences where 100% I'm I'm given more opportunity for my message to land, I think.

There are other audiences or other people where I think they already have assumptions about what my values are gonna be just by the way I look, and I have to almost break that area. It's like it's gone both ways. Interesting. But certainly with with with, you know, leadership teams, execs, etcetera, it's important to say that it's it's difficult topic. Right?

But it's important to say that perhaps men get given more opportunity to share their message. However, once I share my message, sometimes I do meet resistance. Yeah. And not all the time. Yeah.

But sometimes I do meet resistance. And interestingly, that's not necessarily a gendered thing. That's more to do with the degree to which the person in question has internalized that, let's say, more masculine profit over people mindset. Exactly. Right?

And that can come from women as well, and I've certainly encountered that. How do you navigate those tension points? Or do you just kind of, like, pick your battles or persuade the persuadable? Or is there a way that you can Yeah. Overcome those?

It's it's been a really interesting journey for me. Like, for a while, perhaps, I was overly idealistic. The way that I've navigated this is to try and speak both languages, both the care and the results. The k stuff comes easily to me. Mhmm.

I've learned to speak the other language better now, and so I try to hold both of those when I show up. That seems to work. You wanna meet people where they're at. You don't wanna just come and act like some holy guy on a mountain top, like, professing, like, this is how it should happen. Or you need to meet people where they're at.

So that's what I've tried to do, and that that seems to to land better. Right? But but but it is it's it's worth recognizing sometimes the privilege that I might have to reach certain people and others might not. And it's important to to use that in a way to, like, break down barriers, not reinforce them. So that's what I'm trying to do.

I love that. You're a Trojan horse going in there and sharing the good word. Steve, final traditional closing question on this show. What is one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson? Yes.

I've thought you'd ask this given the and I obviously listened to some of the other podcasts. I was gonna share some other stuff that's happened to me, but but I think, actually, I'm gonna come back to what I've been through over the past seven months because it's it's been the most difficult period of my life without doubt and, you know, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it's also been I can feel a a really pivotal moment in my life where, like I mentioned, it was one way of showing up in the world and now there's going to be a new way. And so I'm like, I'm I'm I'm leaning into that or no. I'm not I'm not leaning into it. I'm allowing it to emerge.

I think that's the difference here. The lesson that I'm discovering in it was my previous way of navigating the world and succeeding the world was around control, not control of others, control of myself and, like, self management and doing all the right things. So it's quite tight, quite rigid, and I guess quite masculine in a way even though, you know, as we're talking about well-being, it was also it was quite like I've got this. I know what I'm gonna do. It's it's my way, that kind of thing.

I can see where that potentially led me. Right? And where I'm what I'm being invited now is to hold a far softer way of being in the world and actually surrendering more and allowing more and softening. Like, that's what I feel happening. Again, this is it's not an either or.

Like, I think I think there needs to be some degree of both. You need intention, but 100% what I'm feeling is a surrender to something probably that transcends me and my ego, and and discover my place in it. Sorry. Just as a quick follow-up to that, how much easier do you think it is given your situation to be able to kinda take that exhale and just kind of be especially, you know, what I'm getting to is, like, the financial setup as well. Right?

Because I'm not sure, like, many people would be able to take that much time off work or just kind of, like, chill and take it easy. So 100%. Great question, and I have thought about it. And, again, I recognize how lucky I have been to be able to have this time to exhale. What I am now trying to reflect on is is what can this look like within the constraints of just our normal everyday day you know, I can't keep up this being of work forever.

Right? You know, I'm gonna I'm getting back into work. Yeah. Nice. I think it's got something to do with recognizing that we are human beings, recognizing it's not our fault that we are feeling the way we are feeling, but that it is our responsibility to do what we can to to try and show up better for ourselves and and for others.

Right? So I'm still, like, let's not say figuring out. That's going back to my old way. I'm allowing this to emerge. Yeah.

I love that. There has to be a shift. Yeah. Where we honor humanity, and I think that's what I'm what I'm learning. Yeah.

I love that. That's great to hear. And I think we've talked about how normalized this operational mechanical way of working has been, you know, ingrained in our in our world of work again, since the industrial revolution that you you touched on. A really key word that I just wanna hone in on was, like, the shame and the guilt around it as well, and that's what came up while I was listening to you as well with that inner kind of monologue. And as much as, okay, maybe we can, like, get a little bit more sleep Yeah.

Take a bit more time. It's it's it's easier said than done sometimes. And I think that until we affect more of that change and love to see companies like Unmind have that greater impact, I think it needs to kind of be so much more widespread and pervasive and normalize that other way of working to help kinda dull that that voice that beats us up in our mind. So I appreciate all the work that you do, Steve. It's incredible.

Great mission that you're on with Unmind. And I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. I appreciate your vulnerability, opening up, and lots of really practical lessons shared. So thank you so much. And thank you so much for listening. I really hope you've enjoyed this. If you have, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button, and I will see you next time.

SM: And thank you so much for listening. Really hope that you've enjoyed this episode as well. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Honestly, it really helps me out.

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