Workouts for the Mind
Posts
I wasn't born to be an entrepreneur 🤷‍♀️

I wasn't born to be an entrepreneur 🤷‍♀️

Born to be, or not born to be 🤔!?

March 19, 2025

WORKOUTS FOR THE MIND

I get asked all the time how I started MYNDY.

So here goes…

I wasn't born to be an entrepreneur.

Some people are wired for entrepreneurship - the risk-seekers who love the high-highs and low-lows, that "sold strawberry lemonade in first grade" types.

That wasn't me. So, I used to say I'd never start a company. What’s crazy is that I now can't picture doing anything else.

Since starting MYNDY, I've learned there are 3 kinds of entrepreneurs: those who fall in love with the lifestyle (process), those who fall in love with a partner and can’t wait to work with them (people), or those who fall in love with the thing they’re solving for (problem). I'm the third kind. I fell in love with the problem. The "can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence" kind of love - my obsession with this problem started 10 years ago when I burned out in my first job….

I was working at a bank and I was told—daily—to be less enthusiastic ("fewer exclamation points please!!"), ask fewer questions (they called me “bubbles”), and basically told to keep my mouth shut. With incessant feedback all the time, I burned out trying to be someone else.

During that first year, I coped with daily strawberry-frosted donuts and horoscopes from the AM Paper promising dream jobs.

My dad told me I'd never love anything I wasn't good at. So I got good at the job, won a global award, and networked with 3-5 people weekly seeking my next move - somewhere I could be my real, bubbly self.

After speaking to over 100+ people in a 9-month search, I ended up at a 40-person tech company called General Assembly. Our small team had ambitious goals to transform Fortune 500 learning. What started as a job quickly became my life. I worked all the time, traveled even more, and the stress that initially drove me ("pressure makes diamonds, people"), crushed me. My stomach started hurting daily, I had no appetite (again, for anyone who knows my hypoglycemic snack-fueled-days, scary town), I was in multiple countries in a week, and my sleep was no longer restful. It was an incredible experience that, again, wasn't sustainable.

Running was my therapy until knee injuries took that away too. I realized the daily stress or "toastie-ness" I felt wasn't normal, and it wasn't just me—everyone I knew felt this way—even at companies awarded the "best places to work" badge.

I felt lost. My team and our clients were all stressed…I spoke to amazing companies and their employees were stressed. I used to think that the exhaustion, overwhelm, or "toastie-ness" that I used to feel every single day was both normal and solely caused by work.

I didn't know what else to do, so I decided to go study this problem.

I went to MIT to build a quantitative, research-backed model to fix company culture. Why? I thought if I could just solve what I thought was the root of the problem—workplace culture—we'd be all set!

Why? Because how could I have been in two such different places and ended up in the same, run-down-and-out state where I felt like a sad, tired, and watered-down version of me?

So I became an expert in what we call Organizational Fitness and ended up working cross-functionally in services businesses to rearrange internal operations for growth.

In many ways, this work was the beginning of MYNDY.

I worked in companies to fix everything cultural, structural, or politically you can imagine (shout-out MIT 3-Lens model), but I noticed that people were still tired, stressed, burned out, and “toastie.” So I paused this organization-only work to figure out the individual side of things via what we now call Mental Fitness…which you all know a whole lot about.

The cool news is we’re now bringing this 10+ years of both Organizational + Mental Fitness experience to organizations and the employees within them to solve challenges like:

Assessing and managing culture, alignment, and prioritization
Boosting morale, recognition, and productivity during high-pressure periods
Training new managers on foundational skill sets and a strong mindset
Collaboration and communication within a multigenerational workforce
Work-life balance, stress, and burnout in a remote/hybrid/back-to-office environment
Incorporating cultural principles or desired behaviors into everyday operating models

If you, a friend, or leader you know is looking for help with one of the problems above, or are just open to a conversation with me about this kind of work and how you've experienced these challenges, I’d love to chat—you can reach out HERE!

As always, With heart,

Lissy

INSPIRATION

(Why we share this: This is a spark of info + research that gets you excited to practice Mental Fitness)

"Be courageous. Challenge orthodoxy. Stand up for what you believe in. When you are in your rocking chair talking to your grandchildren many years from now, be sure you have a good story to tell."

— Amal Clooney

PERSPIRATION (Why we share this: These are fun + small exercises to work out your MYND for impact)

Welcome to childhood with a game of “Where’s Waldo!”

This one is a particularly challenging one, but our team did this in our weekly hang a few weeks back and it was too much fun. So say goodbye to your afternoon people! (See below for answer)

CELEBRATION

(Why we share this: This is a way to celebrate your MYND and the MYNDY community)

Today we are celebrating our dear friends who are building something oh-so-special!

The parental leave system is broken—and Leona is here to fix it. Leona is a first-of-its-kind service-based employee benefit that provides meaningful support to both expecting parents and their surrounding team. Learn more about their forward-thinking solutions here and discover how Leona is redefining what parental leave can be for modern workplaces here.

Also - happy spring soltice everyone!

On March 20th, the March Equinox—when night and day are almost equal in duration around the world—takes place. According to scientists, this is the true beginning of spring (though meteorologists consider March 1st the official start). Either way, we’re out of the winter woods, people!

How was the newsletter this week? We’d love quick your thoughts:

Loved it 🤩 | So-so 🙃 | Not for me 🥴

Learn more about MYNDY for you or your company