From Mental Burnout to CEO with Rich Wilson

[00:00:00] Rich Wilson: Like, for probably three or four, five years, I lived on ibuprofen and paracetamol every day. Again, I thought I was normal. Where I started realizing there was a problem was I developed crazy pain in my hands. I, like, like, really, like, unbelievable pain. So I went and seen the, went and seen the doctor and he sat me down and he's like, look, the way you live your life and the way that you think is not normal.
Your ability to handle stress is not normal. And he said, you. You're probably 24 to 48 hours away from a full mental breakdown that you will never recover from. And if you, unless you make some serious changes to your life now, you ain't gonna, you ain't gonna survive this.
[00:00:50] Erika Behl: Welcome to Every Moment is a Choice. I'm your host, Erika Behl. I invite you to join me as we delve into the lives of inspiring and diverse individuals who navigate life with intention. Living with purpose starts with embracing the power you have in every moment. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to subscribe.
So, uh, hello everyone today. I am so honored to have Rich Wilson on the podcast today. Hi, Rich.
[00:01:20] Rich Wilson: Hello, Erica. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:22] Erika Behl: So for the listeners, Rich Wilson is co founder and CEO of Gigged. ai, the platform that is helping FTSE 100 companies navigate the tech talent shortage. Through their internal and open talent platforms.
Prior to founding gig. ai, Rich spent 12 years in senior leadership positions at prominent U. S. staffing firm, Allegis Group, and three years working with Gartner, where he worked with CIOs, CTOs and CDOs. I'm guessing that's Chief Data Officer. Yeah, correct. Okay. On how to navigate digital transformation and the future of work.
Rich is a thought leader in digital transformation and future of work and has contributed to articles with Forbes, Raconteur, and the FT, the good old Financial Times. So Rich was also a board member with a data lab advising on how to solve the skill shortage of data scientists. And Rich is also the host of startup podcast, First Time Founder.
I'm so excited to get into this.
[00:02:27] Rich Wilson: Thank you. No, thanks for having me. I've got a big, uh, that's nearly my CV in one.
[00:02:34] Erika Behl: And Rich, where are you from?
[00:02:36] Rich Wilson: So I'm from, I'm from, um, a little town just outside Glasgow, um, in Scotland called, called Lanark. Like I said, I spent a lot of my time in the U. S. a lot, you know, 15 years working.
A large U. S. firm, so a lot of time in America, but, um, but yeah, I'm a, I'm really a Glasgow boy at heart.
[00:02:53] Erika Behl: Nice. Nice. And we, we've actually met, I, I don't know if we, have we met over email? We met in person one
[00:03:02] Rich Wilson: time, I think. I think it was during the, it was either before or just ha, at COVID, I think we'd done a few video calls when I was at Gartner working with Mac, yeah.
[00:03:12] Erika Behl: Yeah. Yeah. So with my former company, it was a, it was a Scottish based company and we, we worked with Gartner. So I got to know Rich a little bit through that, through that contact, but you've done so much since. So there's so much
[00:03:25] Rich Wilson: to cover here. Yeah, definitely busy. Gartner was quite a big change and then, um, you know, and then, yeah, decided, you know, kind of Gartner I suppose inspired me.
Spent a lot of time working with a lot of very senior leadership, spent a lot of time reading a lot of research. Yeah. See what the future's gonna hold. Yeah. And, you know, I thought, you know what, maybe, maybe I could lean into some of that and, um, try and make some of it happen. So, uh, yeah, that's what I decided to do.
[00:03:52] Erika Behl: Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating stuff. I mean, the future of work is a massive topic. Okay. So, uh, let's just get right into it because I'm really interested about your company. So, you're, you're building a company right now that kind of straddles. the intersection of AI and human talent. So tell us, tell us a bit more about gig.
ai.
[00:04:15] Rich Wilson: Yes. So in its purest form, it is a, it's a talent platform. So it's a, it's a way for senior leaders, mainly in tech, um, to be able to tap into different talent pools. So I, I, I was in recruitment for 12 years, mainly contingent talent. Um, you know, part of the reason I left, or, or the 100% reason I left was, um, was I, I, I suffered from serious burnout, like really, really bad mental health challenges.
12, 12 years in that industry. Uh, great company. It's a great industry, but it, it is very, very difficult industry. And, um, you know, that, that did take its toll on me, um, after, after 12 years, didn't see it coming, hit me like a train, didn't see it coming and, and that. allowed me to take some time out. That's how I ended up then going to took some time out, was then, um, joined Gartner, which I stayed for three years.
It was meant to be a two year gig, but I stayed for nearly three years. And, um, and I was able to look at a lot of the trends and obviously that was during Covid. And Obviously, remote work was growing, but also people's behavior to how they wanted to work was, was changing, you know, there's a start 56 percent of Gen Z's now go freelance before they take a permanent job as a full time job.
Now, you also have the other side of the, um, You know, the, the, the career expanse, and you had a lot of people over 50 who decided that they didn't want to be in the permanent career rat race anymore, and they wanted to go and do something different. So there's been a huge rise in fractional careers, side hustling, whatever you want to call it, but over the next kind of 5 10 years, how we work is going to continue to, to change.
And, you know, companies need to look at different ways that they can tap into that. Change in talent pool like the days of just hiring a full time employee that would stay for four to five years or a contractor that you would have for 12 to 18 months. There's so many other options now and there's so many other different ways to tap into great people from all over the world.
But you need to have a very open mind to how you engage that person. It can't be a full time contract, a fixed term contract, or just a, a, a contractor engagement. There are so many other ways to do it. So, and, and this is something I, I kept seeing and hearing firsthand at, at Gartner. And there was a lot of great platforms were being reviewed by Gartner.
However, they were all very disparate platforms and there wasn't one that could do both the internal. So, hey, what talent do I have internally in my workforce? That may have the skills I need, but is looking for an opportunity. Only 5 percent of companies are, at the moment, look internally before they go externally.
At a time of cost cutting and layoffs, that doesn't really make any sense. But then obviously you've got a growing what we call open talent pool. And that can be, I said, site hustlers, that can be people, fractional consultants, that can be petite consultancies. You know, there's, there's a lot of different talent pools there now all over the world that you, you can tap into.
Um, so, so we thought, why don't we try and do both, which in hindsight was particularly ambitious. Some would say stupid. Um, so we decided to start, um, to try and build two technology platforms at once. That helped and they can be used together. The current behavior is that they're used standalone. And we decided, hey, let's go after big companies.
Let's try and solve that challenge. Again, very ambitious, very, um, you know, and trying to do it from Scotland is difficult as well. Um, but it's also got its perks. There's huge positives as well, um, the workforce really we can tap into, um, so, um, so, yeah, we decided to start, um, trying to solve that problem and we took it from really a blank piece of paper in July.
So I left Gartner on July 2021, really with a blank bit of paper and we thought, right, let's try and let's try and let's try and do this. And that was a journey we've been on for the last, Um, two and a half years. Um, one of the big positives we're seeing, and it was, it's very difficult at first, especially trying to build technology product because that's what we are.
We are trying to build, be a technology company that helps companies tap into talent. We're not trying to be a recruitment firm or any sort of, of, um, of, of recruitment company is very much a technology company. Which is obviously very expensive and very difficult, um, to, to build, but we are seeing much more demand because, again, it goes back to, and a lot of it goes back to people's mental health, is that people want to change how they work, right?
I said, now, if you said to me, you need to go back into an office five days a week with a big corporate, um, work 50 hours a week, you know, in a, in a cubicle, there's no, there's no amount of money that you could do now to get me to do that. There's just, I just couldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it. Um, and I think a lot of people have that, um, you know, COVID was lucky that Gartner had a very open approach to that.
Gartner was a remote company way before COVID. So I'd already tasted what, how efficient a remote first company could be, um, and how effective it could be if it was done correctly. So I'd already. Felt that, you know, it wasn't a big thing for us when, when COVID came, it was just kind of BAU. Um, and that's why they grew so, so much over COVID, but, um, but yeah, that's what I thought.
Can we try and facilitate that? Can we try and lean into the changing, um, behaviors? And I think one of the other things I think we'll start to see companies very much change how, how they view their talent, you know, in terms of, you know, talent, sharings, accordance, you know, you can have talent and you could actually.
Let it go to other companies to learn new skills. You know, I think that whole, you know, workforce that we would have came into of you go in, you work your, you work your tail off, you get promoted, you go again, you get the next promotion, and then you move to the next bigger company for a little bit more.
And then you keep going until you get to the top. And that's what I've done until. I just broke. And then that's when I started thinking, well, why am I trying to get to the top of a ladder that I don't really want to be at the top of the ladder anyway? So why am I trying to climb up this ladder so quickly?
And I think a lot of people are realizing that, you know, there, it's not so much a ladder. There's just, there's different, there's different chapters now, right? And there's different ways to do it. And you can, That whole, that whole traditional career model, which has been going since what the 1930s, 1940s, is really not fit for purpose anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:21] Erika Behl: That's so fascinating because you brought up a few points there on the, on the way that kind of freelance work, the attitude from workers about freelance work is changing because I remember Probably pre COVID, like, freelance work was what you did when you, when you didn't have a full time job because people were seeking, um, I mean there's benefits to full time, there's like the health insurance benefits and kind of the, the package you kind of get being in a full time, full time role, but how, how quickly this seems to have changed now that people are looking beyond full Um, beyond a full time, not, not just a full time job, but kind of almost feeling tied to one company, like people want a bit more freedom or a bit more like project based stuff like that.
It seems like a lot of stuff, a lot's changing.
[00:12:14] Rich Wilson: Yeah. I think, I think COVID, the easy answer to say COVID was the accelerator, but I think for this kind of work it was, um, if you think we've never seen an employment bubble like it. If you think 2020. Well, let's see, March 2020, mass layoffs, right, companies just like, right, what's happening here?
We're going to cut our costs, we're going to, we're going to cut, we don't know what's going on. Huge layoffs, it looked like the economy was, was, was going to trounce. Again, both the US and the UK, and then all of a sudden we get to a stage 12 to 18 months later that we have over employment. So we actually have, um, nearly the highest rates of employment we've ever seen.
But what we realize now, that was over, that was, um, overzealousness and over hiring. And then what we've now realized now is a correction. People who were impacted by, by COVID, people who moved out, like, you, you look at, London's a classic example. Look at people who lived in London who then moved to Cornwall and Devon and all these, some, a lot up to Scottish Islands.
They just got out of it. So, they then move, let's say you move to a Scottish island, Shetland, you're an executive in the city, and then after COVID, You're cool for 12 months and then now you're getting a return to work mandate. And it's like, hey, you need to come back full time to London. You're not going full time to London.
So you're going to try and get a, uh, uh, you know, you're going to try and find a remote first job somewhere else. But what then a lot of people are doing, and this is, this is a behavior change that we've seen a lot on our platform, is 70%, on that open talent, 70 percent of all the projects that get completed are by what we call a side hustler.
And a side hustler is someone who is permanently employed somewhere, but they are dipping their toe in the market to try and start to build a fractional career. And that person that I mentioned in Shetland, they're not going to quit their job and go freelance. They're not going to do that. That's a big, that's a big risk.
But what they're going to do is they're going to sign up to a platform like us or an Upwork or a Catalan or, you know, and, and they're going to try and start to get a gig and they're going to try and do that in Eden as a weekends. And then all of a sudden they're going to get to a point where they go, you know what, I am going to then go and build a career or not even a career.
I'm going to go and build an income from being fractional. And you know, that can be a consultant that can be a freelancer. It can be a contractor. There's lots of different. You know, that whole freelancer was for me is a catch all for a lot of different things. It doesn't. Um, you know, back in the day you would think a freelancer is a really creative.
You would really think about creative industries. You wouldn't think about it for high tech, but now it really has a catch all. It's, it's, it's, um, it's a term for someone who is not a full time employee, but that can be, that can be a different, um, a different way. And as I said, we're, we're seeing a lot of really.
senior people. And, and then we're seeing people who are being made redundant. Maybe they've been made redundant. And I mean, senior people, CTOs, CTIs, CTOs that have been made redundant two or three times in the last three years. That's, that's painful, right? That's, that emotionally, has an impact. Being made redundant, again, it's just a balance sheet decision mostly, but that being made redundant does, does have an impact on your well being.
You know, if you've been made redundant two or three times in a short period of time, you're, you're gonna start thinking maybe there's a different way to work. Maybe there's a different way for me to live and maybe I don't take another full time job at Google because I might just be let go in 12 months when When they cut that department I was working in.
So yeah, I think all of these things that have been so condensed in the last two or three years. It's then leading to a change in behavior.
[00:16:11] Erika Behl: It's so fascinating to me, the side hustle culture that's emerging, because even out here in Singapore, it's, it's also a huge thing and people view it almost as a, a way of taking back a little bit of autonomy, like you said, because you, you don't have this type of relationship with companies anymore that you, that you trust that they're going to take care of you as long as you do your job, right?
There's so many layoffs. People have just lost that trust, I think, and even larger in the Googles, the Metas, all these places that are having massive layoffs, even out here in Singapore, and people are viewing this as kind of a, I'm going to take back control by doing a side hustle, build it up to around 60, 70 percent of my current full time income, and then I have a lot of freedom, you know?
And
[00:16:56] Rich Wilson: it's an insurance policy, right? Yeah. It's an insurance policy because, you know, think about LinkedIn. You know, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, but you've never seen so many very high quality senior people being made redundant as regularly as we have recently. Like even this year alone, like the, and, and there's always like in the past there's been this, Oh, well they've been made redundant because they're not very good.
That's crap now. Right. That's not why people have been made redundant. They're being made redundant because. of, um, the, the, the yo yo effect to the economy and the fact that companies are often, um, and this is how big companies work, right? It's not a new thing. They are, they're, they're reducing their OPEX budget, they're reducing their budgets.
During COVID they reduced it and then expanded it and now they're reducing it again because they're trying to keep their fixed costs very low. If you're keeping your fixed costs low, you still need to drive new projects, new products, you still need to do new things. So the money's still getting spent.
Yeah, but it's getting spent over here in this other budget, which is usually that's what and that's what the fractional, um, say comes in. And traditionally the fractional site has always been a dairy contractor that would be on site for 12 to 18 months. But because of the regulations, especially in the U S and the UK, that's not as easy to do anymore.
And it's not, you know, it's disguised employment, but if you work as a site hustler on an outcome and you work on, not on hours work, but on what. the outcome is that you're trying to achieve, then that could be done as a side hustle. And that's really the big behavior change that we're trying to, that we're trying to change with companies.
The talent behavior change is easy, right? We always say the talent bit is not the part where we have the problem. Being able to change the behavior of companies that have been used to doing it a different way, but we are definitely seeing a change. There is definitely a, you know, we had a large FTSE 100 company.
Call me recently and say, Hey, you're the site hustle guys. We want to hire site hustlers. I'm like, well, we don't actually use that terminology and we don't, that's not really what we do, but fair enough. Right. But that just shows you there is a, there is a, you know, that's a CEO, a huge multi billion dollar company because of thinking about how do I tap into, how do I get the talent I need, especially in the age of Jenny.
I, everybody's saying, obviously jobs have been We don't need humans anymore, but That's not, that's not the reality, right? And, and then you, you can start tapping into different skills, but those skills don't exist. So you could go out and say, Hey, I need someone who can do an API for open AI. Well, there's not many people that can do that.
So you're not going to hire that full time, but you could tap into somebody to do it in an outcome who's done it at their other company. And, um, I said, it's a, it's a behavior change and it's a, it's a, it's definitely a change, but, um, I do think five, five years is my prediction. This will be pretty normal.
And we're just at the intersection of it now. Yeah. So
[00:20:06] Erika Behl: I'm picking up on AI because you said AI is not yet. taking away jobs. Um, how, how is AI impacting human talent though? Because I mean, there's a, there's nervousness, there's a kind of a unknown, what is it going to be doing? What's your read on it?
[00:20:23] Rich Wilson: So I always have quite, I always have the opposite opinion on what people think I'm going to do because we've got, obviously we, we have built a company called Gig the AI.
We chose that name before, um, the, the AI gravy train started and it seemed cool. Cool. Now, so, we decided to use, to use AI to, to automate some of the places where there was human error. It's definitely not about replacing people. So, again, not to get too technical, but what our platform really does, the AI part is relatively simple.
It uses AI to create an outcome based statement of work. So, You can only work on an outcome if it is, if the work is qualified well. A lot of companies go wrong qualifying the work, right? It always goes wrong. This was, this happened in recruitment. Humans don't qualify work very well. It depends, you know, could have a bad day.
They could just not ask the right question. So you can automate that really easily. So we've automated that. And then we've automated the skill matching, you know, because it's an outcome, you're matching skill. You're not actually matching culture. Culture doesn't really matter too much when you're trying to work on an outcome.
Yeah. Culture matters massively when you're trying to build a permanent workforce, but when you're trying to do outcomes, it's not the most important thing. Obviously, you need interpersonal skills. A person's going to be working with you for, You know, a couple of weeks or a couple of months to do a specific piece of work, right?
The culture is not as important as, as we think. Now, and I share that point because we, again, we're not, we weren't trying to replace recruiters and we, but what we were trying to do is, get people doing the more high value tasks. And the more high value tasks are building relationships with the customer.
You know, being able to deal with disputes and issues as you come along. You know, they're, they're high value tasks. They're things that I wouldn't want a chatbot, uh, you know, dealing with a dispute. I wouldn't, I wouldn't want, uh, you know, a chatbot can't go out and have a coffee with somebody and get to know them personally and professionally.
Yeah, they can't do that. But it can definitely help create, um, create a better state of work than a human can. So. And with, with that risk taken away, they have more time to do the key thing. And I think that is case in point about what we're seeing in, in GenEI. People forget two years ago, the hot topic was blockchain.
Blockchain, blockchain everywhere, right? Now, and a lot of that was confused with crypto, but what really happened there was, Blockchain has grown and some of the companies have turned into multi billion dollar companies. There's not been that many of them because the use cases have been actually lower than they anticipated.
That's exactly the same with GenEI, right? It's came out with this big, you know, and, and, and GenEI is not new, large language models are not new. Um, they're, how effective they are in the UX of them in terms of how you and me would use them have changed, but it's not new technology. But what we are, what, um, you know, my prediction is that we will, there will be certain jobs that will be, that will be impacted and reduced by this.
So there was a report that came out last week. The most impacted job in tech has actually been copywriters. So if you're, if you're building a new website or you're building a new product, you'd always get the copywriter to, to make sure that the copy is on sync. There's been a reduction in amount of demand for copywriters.
Yeah. Because you could put that through. But however, again, if you're a large company or even a small company, because yes, we used AI tools to help write a lot of a copy, but I still employed, uh, um, a copywriter for five, 6, 000 to review everything before it went live. Because even though that helped it, you, you can't replace the quality and the emotion or that, uh, that, uh, that an expert can do to pick up certain nuances that might not exist.
And, um, you know, so I think it will definitely help more high value tasks. Look at a software developer. Software developer, you can use Copilot now to help you create some lines of code. Data scientists can use it to create some, some Python scripts now. Does that mean that we're going to see a reduction of software developers and a reduction of data scientists?
No. Well, we see them focusing more on the qualitative piece of the the, the task. Yes. And I think that is the big thing that companies are wrestling with. Just now. Go back to that blockchain example. What are the use cases, the proper use cases for generative AI and large, loud language models? 'cause the AI thing is very, it is very confusing at the end of the day.
AI has lots of strands to it. You've got natural language procession, you've got machine learning. None of this is new. Yeah, I mean, people are thrown about the AI term a lot. It's actually generative AI they're thinking about, but generative AI is just a tiny part of, of the, of the big picture. Um, so I said I think there will be, uh, there will be certain jobs that will definitely be, be reduced.
I said copyright was, was, um, was one, you know, customer support is one that we, we've seen, we've seen a lot of companies, we've seen some terrible examples as well of companies using large lineage models. The ones in the US about. Um, what was it, giving free cars away and stuff. There's some really bad examples of, um, of, of things being implemented.
So we're right at the beginning of what are the, the useful use cases for generative AI. And they will be a lot smaller than we anticipate. And yes, it will have a reduction in some jobs. But overall, the job, the, the, the amount of jobs will actually increase, you know, there will be new jobs that will come if you think in five years time, one of the biggest skills that we're going to need is, um, cyber security.
So cyber security is going to be one of the biggest. Data privacy is going to be one of data ethics. That's not really, that's, you can count them into people with data ethics, but data ethics is going to become a big job, right? If you're in university just now and you're doing psychology and ethics, you should move into data.
Because you're going to be, you know, you could have a fractional and a full time career and then retire by the time you're 25, probably with them, you know, if you go into the ethics, because every company is wrestling with, you know, and even data law, right? Um, you know, if you're a lawyer now, are you going to be needed to review an MSA?
Probably not, because it's been proved that chart GP teaching review an MSA better than you can. Um, But when it comes to the ethics and the human impact of how this technology is going to impact copyright, people, you know, it's a can of worms, right? So yeah, yeah. So I, I, I, I definitely don't see this as a, as a reduction.
I think one of the interesting things that, you know, kind of clickbaity headline recently was Sam Altman, who's the CEO and co founder of OpenAI came out and said, we will soon see in the next two years, I think he said. the first billion dollar company with no employees. I think that's a bit, I don't disagree with that, but I think it's a bit misleading.
And I think that that is where we see the combination of large language models and fractional talent coming together. So do you need to build a company with a massive full time workforce? No. I said, we, we, we built one of the fastest growing companies in the UK with. 12 full time employees, and then about a team of another 30 fractional workers that come on and out as we need them.
That's allowed us to keep our costs low and allowed us to grow quick. I do think the, the days, the days are coming that you could have a team of one, two, three full time founders, and then building a fractional team of CFO, CMOs, um, you know, as well as automate and a lot of the workflows through large language models that actually you could build.
It's a really valuable company, but I don't believe that that's not going to be because you're going to automate the whole thing and you don't need people. I think those people are just going to work in a different way.
[00:29:02] Erika Behl: Yeah. Yeah. And this is fascinating, fascinating. And, and for the most part, you are projecting a positive spin on the, the coming, the coming wave of AI and what it's, what the impact is.
[00:29:18] Rich Wilson: I think it's like, it's a, it's a great time. There's obviously. There's obviously, there is a concerns, you know, if you really look at human behavior and you really look at the detail, it's not Armageddon, right? It's not the end of the world. Um, you know, I know there's a view that like AGI, artificial general intelligence will take over the world and it will be terminated and yeah, maybe, but, um, but I don't think so.
Right. And, and, um, you know, we're at a time where people can work in different ways. We've got amazing ways that people can work, you know, as I said, from that island in Scotland or, or, or, Or Singapore or wherever, right? You can tap into global, global workforces and global ways of working. And this technology is just going to help.
accelerate that change. So I, I, I don't see it as the doomsday scenario that is, that is painted, um, by Mary. As I said, I think the use cases for generative AI will be less, um, it will be less life changing than what we think. It's not going to be the, the, the, you know, catalyst for the whole change, but it will be another piece of technology which will make, you know, Um, a big difference.
And then we've got the next leap, which is quantum computing. That's the next one. Two, three years, we'll all be talking about quantum computing. We won't be talking about generative AI anymore. We'll be talking about quantum compute. And we'll be talking about how that's going to change. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:54] Erika Behl: So, I mean, to, to play this out and the, the impact on the fractional workers, if they're going to become a larger and larger proportion of the overall workforce, is that, does it, what replaces the kind of social aspects that you get from, you Being a full time worker in an office where you see the same people, you have your work buddies, you go out for beers after work.
Like, what replaces that? Because is that not kind of a downside to it?
[00:31:22] Rich Wilson: Like, I think it is a, it is a downside. if it, if it is something that motivates you. So I think there is, I think the, the, the traditional approach that, that you're working in an office and the social aspect, um, motivates a lot of people I think is, is definitely reducing.
Like I said, that doesn't motivate me, never really motivated me, but it does motivate a lot of people, especially those that are early in their career. But what we're seeing is arise in fractional communities. You know, there's amazing fractional communities, um, out there. Um, most good platforms have their own community.
We have our own community. It's mainly around education and, and advice. There are independent ones out there. There's a great one in, in, in Europe. Um, there's some great ones in the, in the U. S. and they are, they are communities where people meet up. They meet up to work in certain locations, There's a Scottish company called Desana, which is, uh, which is pretty much you can work from any remote office, right?
And a lot of these communities, they meet together and they pick an office. They're going to work in that day and they're going to meet, they'll have coffee, they'll have beers and they'll work together. Um, and I think we're seeing a lot more of those, those, those fractional, uh, communities. And you know, there is a reason that most companies are investing in a community.
They don't charge for it. We don't charge for it. The reason I'm doing it is. You still need, you know, how do people learn from each other? How do people get advice? The biggest thing in our community, people don't tend to meet up that much. What would they do to, the channel that is used the most is the hashtag advice channel.
And advice is always asked. Hey, I've got this example of this. What would you do here? I've got this customer saying this. What would you do? That's hugely, um, important. So, um, so I think those social channels still can still exist if that's what you want to do. If you choose to do that, you can still be part of, um, you know, certain, uh, communities.
There's a, there's a marketing community in the UK that we've sponsored a few times, like that sells out like four or 500 people every single time. It's crazy. Um, and that's some, that's, um, digital marketers, most of them are aged between like 18 to 22. None of them work full time, they all are SEO and, and, um, and, and, and social media, but they're all freelancers.
None of them are permanent. Some of them are still at university. I think some of them are still at school, but they want a sense of community. So, um, it's called Pretty Little Marketer and they, that is a hugely, um, um, um, and And, um, I, I hugely impactful community. And as I said, there's, there's examples like that all over of communities that are building for those that choose not to do that career.
And because I think there's a lot of people that have, you know, we're a lot better at talking about your mental health now, you know, something that I've been, you know, passionate about and talked a lot about over the years. A lot of social anxiety that comes with, with, with an, within an office as well, and comes with that approach is that I, I realized that, you know, I'm, even though I, I, I've walked in sales and I've, I, I'm, I'm a founder and I'm talking stage every second week.
I'm an introvert. I've realized that I'm an absolute introvert. Right. I, yeah. I don't really thrive off social interaction. I'm not great at it. Yeah. Um, uh, and I, I realized that I'm much more effective. Um, you know, like we haven't, we have two offices. I spend most of my time in this box room because it's, um, it's where I'm most productive.
Yeah. We go out and meet people a lot, obviously, but I do, you know, it's trying to go like, where do you, where do you, where do you do your best work? Where are you at your most happiest and productive? Um, so, so yeah, I think, I think if that is what motivates you, then there are, there are plenty of communities and options there.
If you think about even. You know, we're in a, in Glasgow, we moved into a place called Bartley's Eagle Labs, obviously sponsored by Bartley's. Um, you pay for it, but it's not subsidized, it's not a lot, but there's so many freelancers in there. And we've got a, you know, as I said, we've got like 12, 13 of us, and we're pretty loud, we've got quite a, I'm quite a driven bunch and a lot of people come up to me saying, Hey, I just, I'm a solo.
I'm a freelancer. I work on my own. I just come in and set up with you guys because I like the vape. I like the chat. I like the, I like the, the, the positivity, um, and you know, cause we're on our floor now. There was us and there was a desk and all the desks are full and they are all solo freelancers because they're just.
Hold on. And they want, they like the, they like the vibe, right? And they like the way they work and they don't want to work in, um, you know, they don't want to work in, um, an office. Like my software developer at the moment, um, he, uh, just had a baby recently. Him and his wife were big travelers before. And, um, he's currently working, um, for three months.
I think three or four months. He's in, he's in Bali, um, baby doesn't go to nursery yet. His wife's still in maternity. So they've decided, hey, look, we're going to go out. He's still doing his coding work. He's still working. Um, but he's in Bali and that's cool. That's, you know, that's, that's fine. Why, you know, and if you tried to do that three, four years ago, it would have been like, are you crazy?
But now it's like, well, You know, you're still doing your work, you're still there. Does it matter to me if you're in Bali or Glasgow or really?
[00:37:08] Erika Behl: So, uh, I mean, I get that. Okay. So people are still looking for community. They're just looking at, they're orienting towards different communities and, and your group is fun apparently.
That's awesome. That'd be, that'd be, yes. So what about, okay, so here's the, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, um, so what about the other, the other aspect of, of being around, like an office is having a, a boss, like a long term boss who's, or should be, invested in your growth and development. Like if you're a fractional, don't you have to be so self directed?
That's awesome. in terms of, okay, if I want to earn more money, then I'm going to have to learn this and I'm going to have to learn it on my own. And
[00:37:51] Rich Wilson: again, that boss may not always be there, right? And then that change of boss, as we all know, right? The, you know, a company is not the company, it's really your boss, right?
And your boss is your perception of that company. If you have a great boss, you'll think it's a great company. If you've got a terrible boss, you probably won't think it's a great company. Um, so I think that we're seeing people do the best, trying to do both best worlds, right? And have their full time. And then building the confidence and the, and, and the belief that they can then do it on their own when the time is, when the time is right.
So, you know, I, I do, I, I would more prescribe to the area that you are, you know, in certain roles, there is definitely a big benefit to being full time early in your career, you know, I think going freelance from day one is definitely, is definitely, um, going to have downsides, right? It's not all upside.
Right. early on your career. I think that is something to think. I think if I was freelance early on my career, I don't think it would have been the best thing for me at that at 21, 22. Personally, again, for me personally, I got a lot, I learned a lot from the people around. I got a lot of feedback. You know, not always great feedback, but I learned from a lot of that feedback and that helped me.
So I think, uh, I think there's definitely, there's definitely, um, um, pluses to that. Yeah. Like we said at the start of the conversation, your most role, you know, the average tenure now of a full time role is two and a half years, right? It's not a lot. Yeah. So it's like, you know, we're seeing a much bigger, uh, transient workforce now in terms of, um, You know, and as I said, the layoffs have that, right?
So, you know, the chances now that you're going to be able to work somewhere for two and a half years or more without being impacted by a layoff or something, it's probably, it's probably a pretty, pretty high chance that you're going to be impacted by one of those things. So the chance that you're going to have that long time, um, manager interaction.
Um, and there's also the other side, like, I worked for the same person for nearly 12 years. I learned a ton. So. If I'd maybe worked for three or four people in that 12 years, maybe I would have learned some different skills as well. So um, yeah, I don't think it's a one size fits all. And I think it is about choosing what's right for you at certain points in your life.
You know, there's certain people who go, you know what, I'm going to go and take a full time job. And I'm going to do it because I need the security, and that's the way I am, and that's cool, right? There's nothing wrong with that. Um, and, um, and as I said, that person then may go, you know what, actually, I'm going to start building a side hustle in the background, and then in five years time, they may actually then go and do it, and, and, um, and I think that's the reality of, of what we're, what we're doing.
We're going to see is that dip in the toe in the water and try and have the best of both worlds for a while. And then you can decide what you, what you want to do.
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So let's go back to your journey because you'd, you've alluded to the fact that mental health is very important to you. You went through burnout yourself, um, and tell us a bit more about the burnout specifically because post COVID. Many people are talking about burnout. Many, many people have experienced burnout, or at least have a great desire to, to reassess their priorities.
Um, but you went through this pre COVID, and I, I'm wondering, like, what, what kind of support were you able to get back then?
[00:42:52] Rich Wilson: It's not a particularly uplifting story, um, to be honest. But, yeah, so I, I I was diagnosed with a breakdown in 2018. And, um, the, the writing was probably in the wall for a while to be honest, but I didn't, I didn't see it.
Um, so I had, I was always been really ambitious. I've always been really hard working. Um, and that has always been very much ingrained in me. And that really, you know, You know, especially working in a, in a, in a, in a kind of U. S. grown company. I, I, I thrived in that environment. I really thrived in it. Um, and, um, it suited me down to the ground.
And, you know, so I kind of grew up in a high stress, high rewards, high risk, you know, new businesses, new offices, new people, you know, very much an entrepreneurial mindset, right? I always felt like I worked for a multi billion dollar startup, right? If I thought there was a good decision to make that would help us grow, and I had the business case, I could do it, right?
And it was a, it was an amazing environment, and I said I don't have any negativity towards the, the environment, um, but when, when, uh, change happened to me, I went through, you know, really when my, when my daughter was born, my wife has a lot of health issues, which were now, now diagnosed now, but weren't at the time, so we didn't really know what was going on.
So there was a lot of, um, a lot of really difficult moments there. You know, my, also, um, my brother has some serious, serious mental health issues at the time. So I had a lot of those things going on and I was running a business that was growing very, very, very fast. And I was really spending a lot of my time, you know, hiding, I suppose, from all the really bad stuff that was going on.
And I'm trying to just build a business, right? Traveling a lot, always on a plane, you know, up every morning at 5. 30. in a suit first, you know, in the car or to the airport or whatever. And that was me. And that was, that was, that was my life. And, um, but I start, I did start, you know, to realize that at the age of 33, 38, nearly 39, but, um, at 33, I did start noticing some, um, some, some kind of issues, right?
So I had, became quite negative, quite angry, which is not really something that is in my psyche. I'm not particularly negative, but I could, I could feel that. I could feel my leadership not being, I think empathy was always probably my strongest leadership trait and leading by the front and leading by example.
And I kind of know, you know, results started dropping off. So And I gripped the back tighter and tighter and tighter to try and solve those, uh, solve those challenges. But at the same time, I was having, always had headaches. Like, for probably three or four, five years, I lived on ibuprofen and paracetamol every day.
Again, I thought I was normal. I hardly slept. I lived on a diet of coffee and marmalades, right? Um, I, uh, I had, I had really bad insomnia. I had really bad body pain. Um, especially my neck and my back, where I started realising there was a problem was I developed, I mean, crazy pain in my hands, like, like, really, like, unbelievable pain.
And then I started noticing that I had like indents in my hand and that was where I was actually muscle wastage. And my muscle in my left hand, my body was going, was actually reducing. So I started, I thought, right, I'll need to go to see somebody about this. So I went and seen the, went and seen the, the daughter and um, they said to me, and they actually sent me a letter, which my wife opened.
I didn't open it. Um, and it was saying, look, we think you have more neuron disease. Right? Which was obviously really serious. And thank Lord they didn't. And, and it's a terrible affect for anybody that had it. But they said to me, we think you have it. And we're we, we need to go through some serious tests and it's gonna take some time.
So anyway, started going through the tests. Um, and, and, and then they were like, actually, you don't have, uh, motor neurone disease. I'm like, great, right, back on it. Let's go. Um, but they said, look, come in next Thursday or whenever it was, we want to just do some checks. And I was like, cool. So I went in and they've done, they do these electrodes in your brain or throat, like, and then the specialist, and the specialist was a neurologist.
And, um, and he sat me down and he's like, Look, can I give you, can, I'll give you a diagnosis, but I'm gonna give you some advice. I said, look, the way you live your life and the way that you think is, is not normal. Your ability to handle stress is not normal. You have such a high threshold for stress, but what you think is normal is not normal.
And he said, you are suffering from acute stress, but you're having, um, you're, you're probably 24 to 48 hours away from a full mental breakdown that you will never recover from. And if you, unless you make some serious changes to your life now, you ain't gonna, you ain't gonna survive this. And, um, and I can remember at a time thinking, That sounds a bit like bullshit.
And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm all right. I was like, I'm all good. So I was like, yeah, cool. No problem. Um, fine. And, um, and then I was like, right, cool. I'll take it a bit easier. Appreciate it. All good. And then I got, I think it was that night or the day after, I forget the exact, um, events, but I got on a plane to some conference and I was flying back and I can remember flying back.
And for some reason I tears coming down my, my, um, Down my face and I can remember just thinking, I can't do this anymore. Like, um, I, I just can't do this anymore. I've done. Um, and, and, and, and that was when I, um, you know, that's when I had to kinda, you know, start talking about it and say, you know, 'cause again, I grew up in a environment.
I'm the oldest of four growing an environment, especially being Scottish and being the oldest of four and being. You don't, you know, I'm not from an environment of talking about that stuff. And I never ever thought I would suffer from mental health. I never, I was, I was like, that wouldn't happen to me.
I'm strong. I would never happen to me. Again, that was my mindset then, you know, you couldn't, you know, we had people come and try to talk to me about meditation. I don't have time for this. Leave me alone. Don't have time for this. Oh crap. Yeah. Mumbo jumbo. Yeah. Right. Um, and, and again, that, that was when, and, and that's when I kind of was like, you know what?
I need to take some time off. Was the support network there for me? No. Right. What was it? Did I get a shoulder around me and supported? No. Um, I took three weeks off, and when I came back, my job as a leader was no longer there. And that's when I realized, you know what, I'm, I'm done. I'm gonna go and take some time off.
I'm gonna leave and go and decide what I want to do with my life. And I'm gonna go and spend time with my daughter. Because my daughter was three at the time, and I hadn't, I really hadn't seen her. And my wife was dealing with some serious shit that I just wasn't really helping with. And it's like, and it was kind of like, it was a, it was a, It was, I suppose, just a shift of going, I'm done.
And again, it was, it was the best thing that ever happened to me in terms of the, the, what followed from the, from those five years since. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't, would not be where I am now physically and mentally without going through that. But it was, when I look back and reflect on it now, it was particularly dark.
But I said, I had all the physical aspects. I didn't really have the mental aspects. I wasn't feeling particularly low. I wasn't feeling suicidal. I wasn't feeling like, oh, I'm depressed. I didn't feel any of that. I just felt like, but I said the physical side. Like, really start, like, I was shaking all the time, like, it was just like, it was dog.
Um, now, again, the, and, and, and then I, I said I took some time out, I moved into mixed martial arts. I joined a program called What to Warrior, which is a bunch of guys struggling from mental health, training every morning, trying to, and that was the most impactful thing I've ever done. Um, I then, I then joined Gartner, which is a really good mindset to that, because I, I'd said to them, look, I'm going to start sharing about some of this.
I'm going to write blogs. I'm going to start sharing. They were like, cool. And, and I appreciated that. They were great. And, and I, so I started sharing a lot of it. I've tried to share, you know, I try and make it, A, it's not a badge of honor. What I try and do is like, I made a shitload of mistakes. I, um, I did not deal with it the way you should deal with it.
Um, I done everything you shouldn't do. I didn't talk about it. I didn't try and change anything. I just kept knuckling down and it nearly broke me. Um, but then as I said, from there on in, I was able to have a much better appreciation for, I was able to change pretty much every aspect of what I do. Um, you know, I, I couldn't, you know, like going to start a business after going through all of that was definitely scary, but I knew that I had the coping mechanisms now to do it, which I wouldn't have had before.
Um, you know, whether it be meditation, whether it be, um, whether it be ice baths, you know, whether it be, you know, Just, you know, taking better, you know, better care of yourself, you know, ain't perfect by any stretch of imagination, but, you know, yeah, going back to, you know, that, that, you know, that period in 2018 was, was particularly dark and particularly difficult.
Um, and as I said, that, but if I hadn't gone through it, and now what I try and do is share, you know, I try and make it a positive and try and talk about, hey, this is what I went through, and this is kind of some of the key aspects, and really, here are some of the things that, you know, because once you're in deep, deep, deep burnout, because burnout is often seen as I'm a bit burnt out, you know, because when they said to me, you, you're, you're, you're something for burnout.
I'm like, all right. And what, but then when he was like, you're actually a bit of a mental health, a mental breakdown, that's when I was like, it doesn't sound great. Um, and then obviously it was all right, but I just, I didn't listen at the time. Right. I don't listen to any of it until it actually hit me like a, like an absolute, it was less, I remember the moment.
All of a sudden, um, and I'm like, what's wrong with me? Why am I, I have tears coming down my face. I'm like, no, I'm a grown man. I shouldn't be crying in a bloody airplane. But that was when I was like, well, this isn't normal. And, um, as I said, been, been, you know, through that, through those experiences. You know, I did change my environment.
I said, I'm not saying it was environments or anybody's fault. It was my fault. I take full responsibility for it. I let it happen. Nobody let it happen. I let it happen. Um, you know, I take responsibility for it. Um, and now I tried to make sure that, you know, that that's the culture that I've tried to build in this company is that we have a burnout avoidance.
focus, right? So, you know, when it comes to flexible working and mental health support, we want people to avoid burnout. That's, that's the big, my team, I have, I want them to avoid burnout. And if we focus on avoiding burnout instead of trying to, um, to fix burnout, you're like, I noticed, you know, 12 months ago, the dating app, this is a tangent, the dating app Bumble came out and put a big press release saying, we're giving a month off because our team are giving them all a month off.
Yesterday they announced that they've just, uh, got rid of 47 percent of their workforce, right? Saying, admitting your team's burnout, you're giving them some time off to admit it, and then cutting them 12 months later is not a good way to avoid burnout. So, I think there's, there's a lot of things that, that, that we can focus on.
Um, but, um, but yeah, as I said, I, I didn't, um, I was the, I was the opposite of, uh, open minded when it came to, um, Um, I did appreciate mental health, as my brother has some serious mental health issues. I appreciated it, but I never, ever, I always had this mentality that I was too strong to, um, none of these things would ever happen to me, or won't happen to me.
Um, which is, uh, which is, uh, which is obviously a very naive, silly way to look at it. But I think a lot of people probably think like that, right? Um, so, um, and like you said, That's COVID and things are getting better. Absolutely. I said, when I went through it and the environment I went through, I was the first person to really, in a senior leadership role, to admit, I am, I'm struggling.
And I said, was it dealt with in the right way? No, but I don't blame that. I said, would it be different now? Probably. Wow.
[00:57:00] Erika Behl: I mean, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that whole story because it's really, It's really powerful, um, you know, like not holding back and sharing all that, the, the struggle you went through there.
And especially as, like you said, as a, as a Scottish guy who, um, you know, in culturally, you know, this is a, it's a big thing for somebody to talk openly about it. You know, it's one thing for, I think, for even women to talk about. We talk about burnout, uh, maybe we're much more empathic when it comes to that type of conversation and understanding of it, but I think for, for a guy like you to talk about that as well.
And the thing I'm really, I'm really picking up on is the kind of, the high level of executive function that some people can still display. When underneath they are going through absolute turmoil and like you said like you're still functioning. You're still running a team You're still like, okay, you're a little bit You know, your temper is a bit shorter, but you're still doing, you're still outputting, right?
And everything. And it's so hard to, I think, um, to do when you have coworkers or when you have other people and you really have to dig a little bit deeper because if you're like, how's it going? How's it going, you know, man? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine. You just still, sometimes you gotta like, okay, really?
Like, how are you? You know? Cause, cause people will hide it.
[00:58:30] Rich Wilson: Yeah. And I, and I think there's, there's also.
It's the biggest thing I've learned. I've obviously learned a lot about Burnout since then, and I've talked a lot about it, and I've read a lot about it, and I've talked to a lot of experts about it. What I've been through is not that rare, right? So I've been through the physical aspects, and I think it is, You know, if someone is, is, is, um, you know, I went through this with my co founder a couple years ago.
You know, somebody's not necessarily taking days off sick, but have some sort, you know, there's a good chance that some of those issues are actually indicators of burnout, you know, and um, you know, my, my, my issues were a chronic headaches, insomnia, obviously the, the hand and body pain. The biggest one was really the stomach pain was my biggest one.
So I, I. I, for as long as I can remember, probably since my early twenties, I'd been tested for ulcers and everything else. I always had real stomach issues. I don't have any. So all those issues, I don't have any of them anymore, not one of them, none of them exist with me anymore. Um, which, and I grew up, as I said, I grew up with these things like the, the, the, the, the headaches, the, and, and, and, you know, when my co founder, that was one of the things I realized, you know, we were going through a big funding round 12 months ago, we were going through a big build.
And I'd noticed, you know, I'd noticed there was a few changes in his behavior. Um, um, sleeping patterns, you know, we, we use a thing called a whoop strap and we've got a group and I'm just kind of noticing there's some, some, um, some real changes in his sleeping patterns and his recovery. Um, you know, and, and I don't, you know, and, and I'm, I'm watching use a whoop strap to monitor people, but we, we, again, we just done it as fun as a group.
There's four or five of us, but I did notice there was a real change and he's sleeping because he would always be recovered. We'd always joke about like, man, you sleep like a baby. Yeah. Um, and then it's about sleeping and recovery side. And then I was, and then I was like, actually I was able to look, I think you're, you're, you're showing the false signs of burnout.
And then once you got into it, we actually got into that was, was, was, was carrying a lot more stress and pressure than what's been like on. There was a view of high. Look, I'm a CTO. I need to have this. I'm good. I'm like, well, yeah, but you're, you're displaying the behaviors that I displayed back in 2018.
Like I'm the hero. I'm the top of the ship. Yeah. I, I kind of show weakness. Vulnerability is a weakness, not a strength. And, um, you know, I'm all good again. That will break at some point that you that will that will come back and bait you in the backside. And, um, and I said, I think that is where I think leaders can have, you can try and have that, that, that awareness.
And, um, you know, a little bit because a lot of time people won't realize that they're struggling from burnout. I said, I did. Honestly, I did not realize. And so, again, it wasn't even, sitting in an office with a, with a neurologist didn't make me realize. I'm saying, you have this, and I was like, all good, I'm fine.
And, and I said, until, until I was like, until it kind of hit me. And maybe it was just processing it, I don't know, whatever it was, but it was, you know, whatever it was that hit me. And whether it's because he said, hey, look, two or three days you're going to have a, you know, you're, and I don't know whether that was just subconscious, I don't know.
But, um, but I think, you know, we can have, have more awareness. There's a great graphic, I share it every now and again on LinkedIn, but there's a great graphic of the kind of nine steps of burnout and, you know, steps two or three, you can kind of, you can kind of check. But once you're down eight, eight, nine, it's a tough road to.
It's a tough road to get back from, you know, it's not as simple as, hey, I'm a little bit burnt out, I'm gonna go and take a week off in the sun. It's not as easy as that.
[01:02:28] Erika Behl: And it's probably, uh, yeah, it's not a two week holiday that's gonna cure you and, and as you get further and further down, it's, it's harder and harder to self diagnose because I think you're so deep into it, stuff is normalized that should not be normalized.
[01:02:45] Rich Wilson: Yeah, you don't, you don't have the, The self awareness, you know, and that's, I think, the biggest thing that, that I have now. Like, does burnout go away? No. Like I said, I had a few weeks ago, I know I was gritting the back too tight. I knew I was going to a place that wasn't good. Yeah. And I, but I did notice it.
I was like, and, and, um, and I, and I did notice it and I knew I needed to delegate some things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I need to tell some people I appreciate them, and I need to get out of their way a bit. I just need to get out of their way a bit, and you go and, you know, do your, like, you know, one of the things I do personally now is I try and steal time, is what I call it.
So like, you know, I get up in the morning, meditate, take my daughter to school, and I go to CrossFit by nine o'clock. I don't, I won't look at an email or log in use until about halftime. Um, but that way I start my day very, and, and then when I realize, hey, I'm not training, I'm going, drop my daughter to school.
And then I'm going straight to the office or straight home to jump the call. Then I'm going on another call and another call. And then it's like, all of a sudden, two, three weeks go by. And you've loved it. And then it's like, well, wait a minute, you know, so I was like, right, actually, it's about, it's about trying to, to, um, to take, uh, you know, take time and do things like, you know, I really like, I don't do ice baths every day, but an ice bath is a, I call it in case of emergency break glass thing for me.
So see if I'm really, really, if I feel like I'm really in a bad place, I will go and get in an ice bath for two to three minutes. I will meditate for, I usually meditate for 10 minutes every day, but if I'm really bad, I know that if I meditate for more than that, I know that I kind of need to do that. And I know I need to do that consistently for a couple of days to try and break the cycle.
Um, and, and as I said, say no to meetings and say no to, to things. I used to say yes to everything. Like, hey, you need to speak at this event tomorrow. You need to do this. I used to say yes to everything. And I noticed even two weeks ago, And again, my co founder checked me on this. He said, you're doing three events today.
You're going to a big meeting with a customer. You're doing another pitch in the afternoon, and then you're running an event, and start to finish. He's like, When are you getting any time to do anything? I'm like, well, no, because he's like, well, like, crazy. We've got a team of people who want more responsibility.
What are you doing? Again, and that is really important. And I said, I never had that before. I think having people there that have been through the burnout and been through it that can check you and that can be your mirror at times. Because yeah, you're right. Like what you said, it is very hard to self diagnose you.
It is very hard to be your mirror, especially when you're deep in it. Like, I think it's nearly impossible to do it on your own. Yeah. You know, I was lucky that, you know, I kind of, a lot of them are now some of my best friends, but I kind of instilled a team of people around me. So I got my MMA coach, Dean, um, one of my best friends now.
Um, to help coach me around the MMA, you know, uh, Jim, who was a coach of Wim Hof to help me with how to do the ice bath properly, how to breathe properly, how to do box breathing, all these things that I always laughed at, um, you know, I also went to some, you know, done some other things. I went to Japan and done like your purpose stuff for the Buddhist monk.
Some, some of the things was a bit out there. Some of it then has created a, um, and I said, all that stuff now is like the trendy hipster stuff to do, like ice bath every day. But I said, I kind of, I did start to find that these things actually do, they actually do help. Um, I said, I don't, you know, I don't use Instagram, I don't use Facebook, I don't post every day that I'm in an ice bath.
Um, but some of these things do, you know, for me, they really helped. And that was another thing I've done as well. Um, I did come off. I said I use LinkedIn for career development, but I came off all social media about four years ago. And, um, because I realized that one of the big things that I had, especially in my career, especially in a career as executives.
competing with each other to get the top job, bit like succession. Um, you know, I realized that comparison is the thief of joy, right? And I was always comparing myself. I could never celebrate anybody's success. You know, they had a Range Rover, I need a better Range Rover. They've just been promoted to, you know, X salary, well I need to do more.
They just hit that target, well I need to do better. And, and, and that was the executive kind of journey I was in. And then now you're like, and I even, you know, I've connected to all these people on social media and you're like, Oh, they've just got that car. They've just got a house. They've just been on holiday.
None of it matters. Right. It's just all stuff. Doesn't matter. But, um, you know, you can get into this whole. You know, comparison, comparing yourself to people, and, um, you know, I saw one, there's one lesson I try and teach my daughter is that, right? I try and talk, you know, about that, comparing yourself, you know, especially little girls who compare themselves to each other, and it's like, you know, you know, that, that comparison, that was probably what started my burnout journey, was comparing myself to everybody.
Like, I could not be, any of my peers, if they achieved something, I was not happy for them. Shaneley was not happy. Um, Like, that would create a fire in me and I needed better and I said, I don't have, I don't have that anymore. You know, I've tried, especially in the startup community, we try, try to create a community of people and founders that are happy for each other, help each other celebrate success.
But that was a really difficult one for me, like really, really difficult to reprogram that in your brain.
[01:08:45] Erika Behl: Hell of a journey. I mean, and that's, you're highlighting one of the big, I think the big differences between corporate and startup communities is. It, there's almost a, um, I, I would liken it to like more of a culture of scarcity within a corporate because there's only a certain number of top, top roles and every, if everybody's kind of trying to ascend and, and fight for those roles, there's not, there's not abundance, there's scarcity.
There's a zero sum type of element to it. Whereas in a, in a startup community, everybody's kind of building something different and you may be competing for funding or competing for, for something, but at the end of the day, it's like people taking their own ideas. and try to build something and, and you kind of want to say like, Oh, hell yeah.
Like that's a cool thing. You know, you, you want to support and, and that's a, such a huge
[01:09:32] Rich Wilson: difference. I was strangely inspired. It was a strange, uh, being into MMA. Um, I, Again, not everybody's cup of tea, but I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast on a MMA ones. I heard them talking about, and this kind of, this was actually changed my mindset on it, believe it or not, was he talked, he's a comedian, right?
Known for being a podcaster and for being a MMA, but really as a comedian. And he talked, he talked a lot about how historically the comedy club that they were in in the US It was a very negative environment. They'd all compete with each other, they would all try and go for the same gigs. And then when the internet came and the podcast came and the market became much bigger, they actually created a community and they stopped competing with each other and he created, and he, he kind of created this, and that's what I thought, that's kind of what, why I always, that kind of what changed my mindset was that whole, yeah, of course comedians compete with each other, but actually, um, cause they're on the same gig or they're, they're, but actually.
When you create a group of them that actually are there to make each other better, the market and the demand for that is actually bigger than it ever has been. And that's the mindset we've tried to have around, around, um, the startup culture is that, you know, that's what we've tried to do in Scotland.
We're trying to make Scotland, Scotland historically has not been, and even Edinburgh has been, but Glasgow has not been known for a startup culture. It has not been known. So what we've tried to do is create a community in Glasgow that creates that by helping each other, by, by bringing people on podcasts, by doing collaborations between each other, just anything we can do to help, um, you know, give a leg up, you know, um, you know, my skills are different from, from a founder somewhere else.
My network is different from their network then, you know, so we've been able to tap into, to different ways, but, you know, that, that's probably been one of the biggest things that, that, that actually helps me avoid burnout now is because I am not continually being triggered by social media or being triggered by.
you know, those huge, you know, unhelpful, um, comparisons, you know, I'm just like, I'm just trying to be me, right? I'm just trying to do it. Yeah. I'm just trying to stay healthy, you know, try and grow a business as well as I can. I'm not scared of failure anymore. I used to be absolutely petrified of failure.
Um, You know, technically you could say when I left after 12 years and how I left, you could say I failed. I don't look at it that way, right? But um, I think at the time I probably did feel that way. And um, I now have a much healthier idea of, you know, failure and, and, and, and I said not as scared by it as I, as I used to be.
[01:12:21] Erika Behl: And you have a podcast called First Time Founders. Is that, is that part of your? Um, initiative to connect with other founders?
[01:12:29] Rich Wilson: Not even connect. What I was trying to do with it was I started it pretty much the day we started the company and I actually started up with the view of trying to bring burnout and mental health to the fore with founders because one of the things I realized was, you know, even at Gartner, I started noticing that there, you know, burnout, especially with a lot of execs I worked with, a lot of them talked to me about, like, I was working with CEOs and CIOs and they would be like, okay.
You know, I'd say really found that blog interesting and they would talk to me about, about that. And I realized that people were much more open and talking about it. Um, but then what I noticed was in the, in the startup culture, especially venture backed firm, people are scared to admit around burnout and mental health because they don't want to show weakness because they feel if they show weakness, the funding will be pulled, which again, is not the reality.
But so I, I decided that I would try and use the podcast to talk to founders. around, um, you know, around, um, around building a company. But in the early days, right about the, you know, the financial pressures, you know, the, the, you know, how you need to sometimes, you know, work a full time job while you're doing it, you know, the side hustle aspect, how you need to, you know, how do you actually save up?
How do you actually start it? How do you actually build a plan? But then how do you deal with the unbelievable stress and pressure that is starting a company? Because, you know, starting a company. And especially during, you know, COVID is one of the most difficult, the most difficult thing I've ever, I've ever done.
So I wanted to bring more awareness around that, um, and some of the journeys and some of the openness that people share. One of the. The most, I think, open one that I've had was there's a guy who I know pretty well, um, always kind of viewed him as quite a, I guess, sit down guy, very, like, quite gruff, I would say, but like me, but like, you know, comes from a similar area of similar background to me as well.
Actually, he sold his, built a huge company, sold it for, you know, well over a hundred million. Um, so you would think, you know, you would think like, Like, well it's great. And I actually noticed a lot of the exited founders were the ones that actually needed support after it. They actually, once it, the burnout hit them after, you know, because they went from building it, they exited it and then their purpose was low.
They'd actually realized they were really struggling with burnout during the whole thing. And then one of them shared a great example around, hey, I went, um, you know, I've got a therapist, you know, and again this is the last person on earth I would expect to show, go into a therapy. Yeah. Conversation. It took me by surprise, but again, just how open he was.
Right. A, a male, mid forties saying, look, you know, I, I went through this and, and gone through it. It was the most miserable time in my life. Yeah. The result and the output looked great and it looks like a fairytale, but for me personally, I've struggled with it. I go to therapy three times a week. Here's what I've learned.
And you're like, wow. Right. And that's amazing. You wouldn't, I don't think you would've seen that from someone like him a few years ago. So, um, so yeah, we tried to use the podcast very much. Um, to to really talk about the subjects that, um, most of the, the pop, the startup podcast, a lot of them talk about product market fit and they talk about funding.
They actually talk about, you know, how do you go and have a conversation with your spouse around? Hey, look, I'm, we're not going to have an income for two years. How are we going to deal with that? You know, how do we, you know, how do you deal with your first hire when your co founder quits and you're standing alone with no money in the bank?
You know, how do you deal with that? How do you build a culture when? You're trying to build a team from scratch, but you have no money, you know, so try and talk about a lot of the taboo subjects that, that, that don't really get talked about much.
[01:16:32] Erika Behl: It's such a service, I mean, to, to people to know that they're not the only one struggling as well.
Yeah,
[01:16:39] Rich Wilson: look, I've been struggling in some way and I think the, the more that we can, we can, um, share different coping mechanisms and, and, and share different advice, the better. Right. Um, so, um, you're right. And again, that's what we'll try to do with the podcast. Try to do a lot of the posts that we put up.
It's just to try and be honest. Again, it's not about. It's not about getting attention. It's not about, um, you're using the mental health as a, as a badge of honor. Um, but it's trying to, um, educate people around, especially the signs. I think just watching, watching out for those signs is the key thing. You know, as I said, I, I said, I'm very thankful and blessed that I didn't have motor neuron disease, but, you know, without those symptoms and those finally being diagnosed, I wouldn't have, you know, I would never had any idea that was.
Mental health related, right? It's like, they're physical. Why are they, they're, I've, I never ever thought that was a thing.
[01:17:47] Erika Behl: Most people don't. I, like, I, the same thing, I, it's only over the past couple years I've learned about like somatic responses to stress and everything, and like stress can show up in many different ways in a physical way, um, but for, I think I'm, I'm a bit similar to you in that I, I could, I always thought I could just think my way out of problems and be like, okay, but like logically this doesn't make sense, logically I can, you know, I can answer these emails at 3 a.
m., I can function, I can do all this, like it's not, yeah, it's self delusion really. Okay.
[01:18:19] Rich Wilson: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's not getting to the, the, it's not getting to the root cause. And as I said, like, now, and, and this is the, the, the thing that, again, does fascinate me, my wife was saying it the other day, like, let's, let's, I think I weigh 20 kilos more than I did.
I don't have the shakes anymore. I don't have the hand pain. I don't have the neck or back pain. Um, again, I had to do a lot of physio and a lot of different things to do. It wasn't, it was a long journey. Um, don't have the stomach pain. I don't, like, literally all of those symptoms, I don't have any of them anymore.
And I, I had a lot of those symptoms for 10 plus years. I honestly just thought it was normal. And I don't have, Like now, if I took a painkiller, I would be really, it would be kind of like, oh, wow, I'm very rare that I would ever, I literally used to live on in my car, it would be full of ibuprofen and paracetamol and Rennie and, um, IBS tablets, peppermint tablets.
So I would literally live on those things because, and, um, you know, I just, I don't touch them, um, and, um, and again, that was through a combination of, you know, of. again, the meditation, the ice baths, the exercising a lot more, um, you know, the, the, the changes in diet, you know, I changed a lot of diet, you know, I've kind of got tested for a lot of things and realized I was allergic to a lot of things, you know, like just kind of things I would never have, if I was on the, you know, if I was on the, kind of, the exec, um, medical round, I would probably never have done those things, but it was when I took the time and I wasn't working, I literally like Every day I would go to the mm MA gym at 6:00 AM then go to the physio.
Um, I would then go like, got tested for various stuff, you know, got blood tests, you know, and um, and, and that's just when you actually realize the physical, so. You know, I got tested for, for everything and I could see how high my stress levels through my blood work. And then recently I got, um, and you could see that, see the, the, the actual difference from in, uh, you know, and, and a lot of the, the stress indicators on, in my blood work, it was like, so I always thought it was just, again, mental, but physically you could see from 2018 to 2023 when I got last one done, the difference in the markers.
We're night and day, like it's of the cortisone levels, right, cortisol, sorry, levels, you know, actually a massive reduction. And that's when you start, when you see it actually from a health professional, you see the difference. You're like, well, that's, that's like crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:21:19] Erika Behl: Yeah, that inflammation, uh, that all the cortisol causes and everything is, is eliminated.
[01:21:24] Rich Wilson: Inflammation was one of the biggest things I think I learned about, you know. Yeah. I mean, kind of started on turmeric and, and, and, and, and again, that's what the ice baths do, help reduce inflammation. And I think a lot of the hand pain and stuff was inflammation, right? I think, you know, the, the muscle wastage and stuff, it was, it was inflammation.
It was, it was just my body dealing with these things over, over time. Because if I was negotiating a big deal, which I was regularly, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen the episode of Friends, right, when Phoebe is, is, is an investment banker and she's smoking like mad before and after. That was me, right?
Um, I don't smoke anymore, but, um, like, I would be, that would be me where I'd be like, before the deal I'd be smoking and after I'd be smoking, you know, that would be how I would deal with the, with the, you know, stress. But now, if you just breathe through your nose and out through your mouth. And then actually breathe properly, which I never knew how to do, then actually that whole, I need a cigarette because the stress that that's actually your physical reaction to the stress, right?
It's not, you know, you can, that is your, your body, the fight or flight mode. You know, I used to realize if I was going into a big meeting with a big customer, I can remember being outside RBS one day and I was shaking. The minute I went into that meeting and shook the person's hand, I stopped shaking. And the minute I got out, I started shaking again.
You know, that's the fight or flight and that was the, you know, whatever the, the, the cortisol was doing in my, my body, that was all of that and you, and you, you know, and you think, man, that's physical, that's real, right? It's not. Um, and, um, but again, it wasn't until after the fact. At the time, I was like, I shake before meetings, you know, um.
Yeah. Don't shave before meetings anymore. Um, um, but I also just thought that was, I just thought that was me. Like, I just thought that's what I'm, I'm like. I have, um, you know, that's just me. I have, um, but then again, being able to get off the train and take some time to get off and actually observe and speak to people that know what they're talking about and actually educate yourself in it.
You actually realize that actually that's not just me. That's not normal. You know? Yeah, that is the impacts of stress. And actually I can, I can deal with it, um, in a different way. And, and again, and, um, again, it's not, it's, it's not, I don't think there's an easy route out if you, but, um, if you can start to prioritize it and, and about, about changing priorities.
So for me, I kinda, I realized that, you know, and, and, and this sounds really selfish when I say it, but I realized, and, and I can remember it was Jim, the, the, the, the breathing and ice work coach said to me's like. Your number one priority needs to be your health. Your number one priority needs to be your physical and mental health.
Your second priority needs to be your family. Your third priority might be some sort of career and work environment, but it should not be number one or number two. And I had ingrained this whole, like, I am a provider. My career is number one. If I provide for that and I earn a lot of money, I'm able to give my family a great life and the house and all that stuff and the holidays and all that stuff.
And that, that is me providing. And that is me doing a good job. And now the old. And actually, when you think about it, what a load of nonsense, right? Again, you know, if I hadn't made it and I had, you know, I'd had a proper breakdown or whatever, then, you know, my, my daughter going to a nice school and grow up in a nice house every day isn't any good of a dad to the mental breakdown, right?
Like, what's the point? Um, but, um, but you do, you know, and you know, and, and that, that did take, it took me a long time. a long time to, to realize that. And I suppose try and make up for it, right? I'm, I'm very, I'm very conscious of it now. She's, she was too young. She doesn't really remember it now, but I remember, right?
I'm kind of very conscious that for three years, what a terrible guy, right? A terrible father, not, not like, not there, present, right? Except for my wife, my wife should have divorced me, right? There was no, there was no, um, there was, you know, apart from providing the material aspects at a high, You know, a high functioning executive, the trappings of it is, you know, you'll earn a decent amount of money and you'll have a decent house and all that kind of stuff, but all the other stuff, right, the really important stuff, um, that stuff wasn't there, so, uh, um, so, you know, it's, it was, uh, And as I say, I try and make up for it, um, now, um, you know, and it does mean, especially with a startup, there are a lot of financial, um, uh, sacrifices you need to make, you know.
Don't go on those holidays like we used to. Um, you know, and, uh, we don't have the dispensable income we used to because building a company from scratch is really, really tough financially. But we've never been happier, right? We've never been happier because, you know, I'm doing what I feel empowered. You know, I'm physically and emotionally been able to spend much better time with my wife and my daughter.
Um, and there is much more happiness there. Do we have as much money in the bank? No, we don't. Um, But hey, we're, we're, we're a hundred times happier. So um, yeah, so it was, uh, if you had told me that five years ago, I'd have laughed at you and walked away.
[01:27:00] Erika Behl: Like you said, it's, it's the, the lesson you learned from the, the horrible experience you went through with the burnout that's taught you all this.
And I mean, I'm, I'm grateful for that doctor who sat you down and said, look buddy, you have like 24 hours because it like, it. It triggered that change in you. I mean, you're here today as a CEO of a company, um, building, building your own business, building business that impacts a lot of other people, you know, better relationship with your family.
Like, it's just a, I, what you're exuding right now is like, You know, a sense of gratitude. I'm happy with what I have, that I'm able, that I'm in a position where I can explore all these great intellectual things that I'm interested in and, and have these relationships and everything. It sounds, it sounds, um, it sounds very powerful coming from you as well.
Um, being, being, uh, you know, a guy from Scotland saying it, um, because I think it's, I think so many other men, especially, need to hear it from a guy like
[01:28:02] Rich Wilson: you. Yeah. And I said, I was, I was that guy, right? As I said, if you know, we did have, I can remember it well, we had a mindfulness expert come into us once in the exec and ask us all to lie down and breathe, do breathe watch during a board meeting.
And I said, are you joking? We've got a board meeting to run. Um, now that probably wasn't the right environment. It probably wasn't teed up in the right way. You know, I think you got to be careful not to. One of the things I've realized, you can't push meditation on people. You can't push any of these things on people.
You can't do it. You need to find it yourself and you need to understand it yourself. You can't push it. You really, you really can't. Um, but I think when, you know, when you realize that there is no other option, again, I got to the stage where there was no other option, right? Um, I said I was given, You know, antidepressants, I think it was diazepam or something I was given and I just put it in a bin, right?
I was like, I ain't going down this route, right? I'm not going to go down. And I know a lot of people down that route, but for me, I'm like, this isn't going to mask. This isn't going to get to the root of the problem. Yeah. I need to, I need to, I need to understand that I am the root of the problem and that's why I'm being very conscious.
There's no blame. Like, you know, I've got to a place where I am grateful for what I went through, grateful for where I'm now, but there is no blame. on, on anybody. I think you can kind of, yeah, I've heard people say to me, yeah, you could shoot, you could do that. You know what? You, you could, you could go down that route.
You could go down that route. I decided that, you know, I wanted to forgive. Anybody that was involved, I also wanted to give myself some forgiveness because I said I wasn't near the end. I wasn't the leader that I should be. I was, I was definitely making bad decisions that were impacting people's mental health as well, I'm sure, right?
Um, and, you know, I wasn't proud of the leader I was, I was becoming. You know, so, um, so, you know, but I think you, you kind of, you do need to, you need to forgive yourself. You need to forgive everybody that's around you and then just try and try and move on with it. Yeah.
[01:30:06] Erika Behl: Powerful words. I mean, with everything you've gone through, if you were to give, if you were to address a graduating class, right, you know, people just entering the workforce, what would you tell
[01:30:21] Rich Wilson: them?
Right. I would, I would tell them to, I would tell them, I would tell them some of my story. Um, and I would, I would be, I would tell them to just be very careful of getting onto the career train and just thinking that your, your success as a person is defined by your success in going up a corporate ladder.
You know, that, that doesn't define you, doesn't define you as a person, doesn't define the man or woman you're going to be. I think, you know, being very You know, being very open minded, you know, I, I, I used to look at a, I used to look at a career as a, as, as I said, a ladder, but now I try and look at it as a chapter of a book, right?
You know, you can have different, you have different chapters, that chapter can be totally different, that chapter may be scary, it may be uplifting, that may be, you know, you have different chapters and, and now you could go from being a, a CEO, you know, like my, whatever happens next, I am going to do, I'm more of a fractional career mix.
I've realized I like working with lots of, uh, I'm going to hopefully go up with startups more. That's why I do go into a fractional career and help startups from some of the things that I've learned from corporate because there's a lot of good things you learn in corporate, um, around building and managing a business operationally.
The things you learn are amazing that really can be applied to a startup. So, you know, that's what I'll go next. Um, I'd probably like to do a bit more in, you know, in the burnout phase, do more talks about it, maybe write a bit more about it. Um, you know, that, that's kind of where, where I'd like to go. So, yeah, I would definitely share my experience, but also realize about the priorities, right, the health.
You know, the, the family and the work and, and, and trying, you know, not be warned that their career and that job doesn't, doesn't define you in our different, different places and different terms. You can go. Yeah. You know, that, that whole career ladder and that whole, that whole way that we've been brought up to think about how your work is really not, is, is not pre described anymore.
You can choose what you want to do. So give it some time, think about it, map it out. Don't, don't just jump into the first job you're offered and just. Um, and move up that because that's the way you think. Really do give it some time and some thought.
[01:32:52] Erika Behl: Wise advice. Wise advice. And yeah, looking forward to whatever you're doing next.
I mean, you threw some stuff out there. I'd be interested in, uh, in to see what's next from
[01:33:02] Rich Wilson: you. Yeah, I think the moment definitely, um, you know, we're in scaling mode, which is really exciting in the company, you know, um, but I've been, I've been open and honest. This was never a long term, you know, I think for, for everybody's good.
You know, we are trying to build something, um, I would imagine that this will then become part of a larger company, um, as we scale out, I don't, I don't see this for me as being like a 10 year, a 10 year gig, you know, I think we'll take this to a certain level, um, hopefully a successful level, but we'll do the best we can and then, yeah, I've always seen, um, I've always said I'm going, uh, I'll go and do something again, something around, um, working mainly with founders, because I've enjoyed that a lot.
And, um, and, um, I've kind of, hopefully I'll get something, you know, from what we've done in a short period of time, hopefully can instill some of that experience around. You know, around fundraising, around building a culture, around how do you actually do it, hopefully. Um, and as I said, I definitely, I don't know exactly what, but I definitely want to do more work within that, that mental health.
Again, I'm not a therapist. I am not an expert in it, um, by any stretch of the imagination. You don't want me coaching you if you're going through burnout, but I think what I can hopefully do is continue to share. Some of my experience and that's, I definitely want to continue to do
[01:34:29] Erika Behl: that. Thank you so much.
I mean, what you shared today is just, I'm, I'm blown away. I'm really blown away, Rich. Thank you so much. I
[01:34:36] Rich Wilson: appreciate you giving me the time to talk about
[01:34:38] Erika Behl: it. Yeah. so much.
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