I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
Bettina Mahoney the Founder/CEO of @atfortifywellness is a rape survivor who started her brand after struggling to not only find a therapist, but multiple mediums to heal through her trauma. Fortify Wellness is a 360 holistic platform offering therapy, coaching, fitness, and meditation on one subscription platform. We dive deep with our trailblazing guests about overcoming adversity.
I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
The Colors of Bipolar: Paul English, Co-Founder of Kayak.com, on Mental Health, Entrepreneurship, and Overcoming Adversity
Paul English, successful entrepreneur and founder of six startups including Kayak, shares his deeply personal journey with bipolar disorder and how vulnerability became his leadership superpower.
• Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 25 and developing coping mechanisms like daily task lists for depression
• Creating the Bipolar Social Club after losing a mentee to suicide, now connecting 400+ people
• Using radical acceptance as a tool to reduce stress and improve relationships
• How vulnerability in leadership creates psychological safety and stronger teams
• Exploring the emotional impact of color and sensory experiences in product design
• Defining success through kindness rather than professional accomplishments
• Why technology should foster genuine human connection rather than constant digital stimulation
• The importance of honoring your inner child and practicing self-compassion
More on Paul English:
Paul is the founder of Boston Venture Studio. Paul has previously co-founded and successfully sold six startups – Kayak, Lola, Moonbeam, GetHuman, Boston Light, and Intermute. Paul is also the founder of four nonprofits – Summits Education in Haiti, Embrace Boston, The Winter Walk for Homelessness, and the Bipolar Social Club. Paul is the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book “A Truck Full of Money”. You can hear an interview with Paul on “How I Built This” with Guy Raz, and you can see his video from TEDxBoston in 2022.
https://www.bipolarsocialclub.org/
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**This information is not to be misconstrued as medical or psychological advice. Please contact your medical team if you have questions or concerns pertaining to your medical or psychological well-being. All of the linked products are independently selected, and curated by the fab Fortify team. If you love and buy something we link to, we may earn a commission.**
Welcome to I Feel you a Fortify Wellness production season seven, where we explore the real stories and strategies that help you strengthen your mind, body and soul. I'm Bettina Mahoney, your guide on this journey to a healthier, more vibrant you. Here's a quick reminder this information shared today is for your inspiration and knowledge, but always consult a healthcare provider for any medical concerns. I am so excited to welcome Paul English, the founder of Boston Venture Studio. Paul has previously co-founded and successfully sold six startups Kayak, lola, moonbeam, get Human, boston Light and Intermute. Paul's also the founder of four nonprofits Boston Light and Intermute. Paul is also the founder of four nonprofits Summit's Education in Haiti, embrace Boston, the Winter Walk for Homelessness and the Bipolar Social Club. Paul is the subject of Tracy Kidder's book A Truck Full of Money. You can hear an interview with Paul on how I built this with Guy Raz, and you can see his video on TEDxBoston in 2022. Please welcome Paul English. Hi Paul, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great, I'm having a really good day and it's nice to be connected. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy that you're having a good day. So of course you've had a lot of success in your life. But when you're alone, without all the labels or expectations, just Paul in his most natural state, what brings you the most comfort and how do you define yourself without the titles?
Speaker 2:That's amazing, I think the thing. You know, when I took a Myers-Briggs test, I put myself in the middle between introvert and extrovert. I usually test right in the middle and this. But that being said, I like talking to people, particularly one-on-one. I like learning from people, so meeting someone new and chatting with them is really fun for me, exciting. And then the second thing, which maybe is equal, is creating something new. I love coming up with new ideas for businesses, products, features, apps, etc.
Speaker 1:Me too. I would consider myself in the middle, and I definitely do better one-on-one with people. I get a little nervous when I'm in a group session, so I understand that as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've had to just do in my career. I've had to learn how to talk in front of groups and it's I think I'm like slightly on the spectrum, so I'm slightly awkward sometimes but I can do it, I do it. I give these talks every few weeks at different universities. I get invited to speak at different events, but I most enjoy like one-on-one.
Speaker 1:Me too, and I see you have a guitar in your background. Do you play guitar?
Speaker 2:I'm learning guitar. I play trumpet and piano and bass and now I'm learning acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's very impressive. So I want to talk to you about your twenties because I noticed that there was a lot of synergy and experiences and I know you struggled and I really appreciated how honest you were. I met you at the SLP workshop. How honest you were about your experience. I think it's so brave and it's so hard for everyone to do. And in my early twenties, after I was assaulted, I really struggled to get out of bed in the morning. Just sitting up out of bed, getting like standing up out of bed, walking to the bathroom, brushing my teeth those all felt like I was running a decathlon. I was in a really low place in my life. I was very depressed and I couldn't see past the next hour. So I'm curious for you during your twenties, when you really struggled, what kept you going and how did you find the strength to ask for help when you really needed it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me, I was diagnosed as having bipolar illness when I was 25. The symptoms started earlier, in my teens I guess you would say just very ADHD and maybe strong anti-authority streak. I struggled in school, didn't like school, didn't study, never did homework, barely graduated high school, almost went to college by accident. And then in my twenties I started struggling both on the manic side, when I would get so hyper and so manic that I would disconnect from people and people would tell me I didn't make sense with some of the stuff I would talk about because my mind was racing too fast and I had grandiosity and all that. And then a manic period.
Speaker 2:For me it's different. With different people who have bipolar illness, the cycles are different. For me the cycles are a manic episode last month, like often a few months, and then I usually crash at the end of it and go into a depressive episode. And for me depression, like in my 20s and 30s, was kind of trapped on the floor of my bedroom. I couldn't even get up on my bed and I would just watch the windowsill like hoping the sun was going to come up and not sure it was going to come up. I literally wasn't sure the sun was going to come up, like I've just had panic attacks and thought it was the end. And then when the sun came up, I got a little bit of energy.
Speaker 2:But I learned this trick from a Buddhist friend of mine that when you're really depressed you make a list called activities of daily living and you put like a yellow sticky on your bathroom mirror and you write things like brush your teeth, take a shower, change your clothes, make a piece of toast, drink a glass of water, you know whatever. And somehow, even when you're really depressing, that list that you have to check off you're just going through the motions but it gives you something to do and after a while you get proud of yourself for achieving those things, even though they're really really little. And so that helped me. And then over time you could add more things to your list, like call a friend, go outside and take a walk, and so to me it's very kind of slow process, kind of step by step.
Speaker 1:Wow, and what was that like for you to to be what I what I would think very high powered, very motivated person and to have to go through those maybe inconsistencies or highs and lows? Did you develop signals, in addition to maybe the list that would kind of help you pull back and and tune back in? Was there anything that helped you kind of tune in and connect with your body?
Speaker 2:I think I would try. I've learned to do breathing exercises. I mentioned that in high school and college I was a pretty serious trumpet player and to play a wind instrument you need to do breathing exercises to project. Like I said, when you play trumpet at a concert hall it's like you're singing to the person in the back row through your instrument and the breath comes from your feet on the floor and it goes through your body Anyway. So I learned these breathing exercises and when I was really depressed, particularly in panic attacks, I would try to do deep breathing, and there's different ways of doing them. You can breathe in for a count of four and then hold for a count of four and then breathe out for a count of six, or there's different mechanisms, but I would try to do those when I'm panicking.
Speaker 2:The other thing that works for me is walking. I think if you just sit in a corner, crawl up in a ball, having a panic attack, there's no escape. So you have to do something to sort of distract the mind, to get the mind focused on something else. It could be things like name three things that begin with letter A and say them out loud, then name three things that begin with letter B and so forth, but to me walking helps, and then when I'm really desperate, I have learned the skill to make a phone call and there's just a few people on like my innermost circle that I would call if I'm having a panic attack. It was helpful, and what I've learned over the years is, when someone is struggling with a mental health issue or any sort of crisis in their life, I would say it's really important to bring three people into the inner circle one family member, one friend and one colleague and if you do that, you cover those three parts of your life. No matter where you are, you're not suffering alone and you have somebody to kind of lean in and help lift the burden from you. And so there's a saying that there's no healing in secrecy. So you need to find those few people, and for me, that started in my 30s, and then over time, I've learned to talk to a little bit more people and a little bit more people.
Speaker 2:Most recently, two years ago, I had a young man that I was mentoring and he had bipolar illness as well, and he was in the process of moving to Kenya, and I have a network in Kenya, so I was setting up with some friends there and we're going to do a project together.
Speaker 2:And then he hung himself and when I heard the news it just like devastated me and I kept thinking like, had I been a better friend, could I have somehow prevented this from happening? And the thing that the idea came up with when Jake passed away is I wish he had a community of people who could talk to. So in his honor, I built something called the bipolar social club. If you just google it, I'll go to bipolar social cluborg and it's a network of people who have bipolar illness. There's about 400 of us right now around the world and we do daily emails, we do gratitude practice, we do all kinds of things and when, like I have one uh young man in the group in California and he told me I love my therapist but she's not bipolar you guys are my home I can tell anything.
Speaker 1:Wow and thank you for sharing that. I relate to that a lot because it's such a different experience sitting in a couch and talking to a therapist versus someone that really understands what your experiences and what you're going through. And that's why I've been so honest about my experience with depression and anxiety and PTSD because, like your story, I relate to it and I respect it and how brave you are because it is really tough to talk about and I know in one of your interviews you talked about people will follow confidence but they'll be loyal to vulnerability and I know you also talked about in our SLP workshop that you know who a founder is and how successful a business could be depending on who comes on early. And I've noticed for me when I'm talking to people and I'm very vulnerable about why I'm building what I'm building in my story, people flock and people are loyal and people will roll up their sleeves on a Saturday night and one of my advisors will text me hey, I have this really cool idea and it's just.
Speaker 1:It's a different experience when you can be vulnerable and you can really share your story and be authentic and come with a different tenacity, because I think it is a secret sauce and people appreciate it. Can you share a moment for me where you were able to be open about your mental health? That kind of changed the trajectory. I know you kind of already alluded to it in a relationship, whether it's in business or personal life. That kind of changed your own personal perception of who you are, because I think sometimes we can see ourselves through the eyes of other people.
Speaker 2:And I think the first time that I opened up to a group of people as opposed to one-on-one, was in October there's a mental health week, maybe and I sent an email which took a lot of courage to my team and I said this was at Kayak in the early days and I said one of the things I love about this company is it's sort of a safe place to talk about stuff that might be struggling with.
Speaker 2:And most families are touched by depression either directly or indirectly. And I want to let you all know that I have bipolar illness and I'm always available to talk if someone wants to talk about what's happening with them. And it took some courage to me and bravery to muster up sending that email and I knew that once I sent it I couldn't unsend it and so my secret was kind of out there. But it turned out to be a really good thing because I got so many great emails back and people coming to my office to talk to me, both to thank me for being vulnerable, but also to tell me their story. And I think that, as a leader, if you're vulnerable, you're giving people permission to tell their story, and that's really important because in the end, we all just want to be heard and seen, and so if you're vulnerable, you're telling other people I see you, I hear you, I'm willing to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I've also experienced that where I've shared my story and I have people that come up to me and go yes, me too and it can feel really empowering as well. What's your advice for, like an early stage founder like myself that wants to build that type of rapport and build that type of culture within an early stage team and wants to build a healthy place where people can go and feel supported and motivated, you know, in that type of environment?
Speaker 2:I think it's a balance. So, as you said earlier, I often say people follow confidence, but the little vulnerability I think you need both. As a leader, you need to be confident in the thing you're good at. People do want their leader to be confident, the leader of their company or their club or whatever. So make sure you're striking out with your strengths, like reaching out, articulating the restraints. Like reaching out, articulating, painting a vision, getting excited. Get people to follow your confidence and your excitement and that can rub off on other people. Excitement can become infectious, but at the same time, having some quiet moments too and I think, having that combination of extreme confidence and drive and vision and excitement, but also stopping and pausing to someone to say, hey, it looks like you were struggling a bit in that meeting, is something going on? Can I help you at all? And being able to execute on both of those fronts I think makes a really great leader.
Speaker 1:I agree and you know, I know that with my advisors I agree, and you know, I know that with my advisors I'm always someone that's like how can I serve you? Thank you so much for you know, because that's not their only thing. It's not just Fortify Wellness, they have other things going on. Some of them are VCs, some of them are lawyers, and I always check in with them and a few days ago I had one of my attorneys on and we are, you know, product testing together.
Speaker 1:I always say that's like brain candy for me and she's out in California, so her entire house burned down during the fires and I'm always checking in on her.
Speaker 1:And what was so cool for me was that she was so open with me about how she was doing and she was like you know, I didn't sleep last night, so I'm feeling exhausted and really burnt out and that to me, was just a sign of building like a really strong rapport and relationship and that really meant a lot to me, as much as you know, proceeding and moving and launching and all the things.
Speaker 1:So I really that's a big compliment to me, because I remember a time when I felt dark and I felt like life wouldn't get better and it does, and that was one of the reasons I started this podcast, because I wanted other people that might be in that position to go. Wow, I'm not the only one, and I love that you're from Boston. I'm also from Boston. I now live in Jersey city, but I love that you're from Boston. That was so cool to me, and you grew up in a small home with nine people and two of your siblings became therapists and your mother a social worker. So'm curious if you weren't an entrepreneur, you once said that you would be a therapist. Do you think your upbringing shaped how you lead, and in what ways has it influenced your approach to human behavior?
Speaker 2:I do think growing up with nine people in a three-bedroom house like very close circumstances. You had to observe who's angry, who's crying, who's drinking. You know you had to observe the house. Two of my therapists actually did go on to become therapists. Starting from the family, they can help you later build teams and observing how teams work and how they function. I'm very interested in relationships, all types of relationships love relationships, friendship relationships, work relationships and if you're an observer and I like to think that at my job I'm probably I don't know 10% therapist or something If you observe, you start noticing things Like, for example, in meetings. If you really pay attention, you'll notice things like men interrupt women more than women interrupt men, which is obviously really shitty. But once you notice that you can fix it. You can fix that, and so part of being a leader is being observant watch for interactions, watch for relationships and coach and nudge and help people and you can make a really better team if you are a little bit observant and if you listen as well.
Speaker 1:I love practicing active listening. You also can read the room. You get to know people's mannerisms and and kind of learn how to finish each other's sentences in that way. So I definitely identify with that and I think over the course of this process, which has been a lot of fun, I've learned to have a lot of empathy for people.
Speaker 1:Everyone's going through something that we might not understand or know, and healing also isn't a straight path for me. When I feel low, I learned to honor my body and listen to my body, and whether that's like meditating or going on my Peloton or going on a walk or hopping on a call with my soul coach, I try to really listen to myself, because it's so important to not pour from an empty cup. I like that's how I ended up, you know, pretty much bedridden, you know years, years ago back, um, and I'm never going to go back to that place anymore. So I'm curious for you, like, do you have a non-negotiable when it comes to your wellness, what, where it's like I have to wake up at this time, I have to meditate, or do you block out some time during your day to kind of whether it's going for a walk or whatever it is what are your non-negotiables when it comes to wellness?
Speaker 2:So I used to think a lot about stress and what causes stress and stress, in my opinion, is the world is not as you want it to be. Like what you're observing is different than what you want, and there's different ways of dealing with that. Like if someone wrongs you, you can say I wish my mom was better at dealing with this, but maybe she's never gonna get better. Maybe that's just based on her upbringing. That's how she's gonna deal with loss or with whatever the issues you're dealing with. And one thing I've learned through studying Buddhism and other things is if you practice radical acceptance to accept everyone for where they are, you no longer have a disconnect of your. You know you want somebody to be one way but they're another way. You just accept everyone. Stress goes down dramatically.
Speaker 2:So I've learned not to be angry. I still get angry a little bit sometimes, but it usually dissipates really rapidly, and the reason for that is I just accept everyone. And I think that if someone quote unquote wrongs me, I think you know if I had their day and their upbringing, I would have done the same thing they did. So therefore I accept what they did. Now you try to not put yourself in harm's way twice right, but um, I just accept things for how they are. I look at the world with open eyes and try to see what the real world looks like.
Speaker 1:Wow. And what was your process to radically accepting yourself?
Speaker 2:I always had things I liked about myself, even as a little kid. I liked that I could tell stories and people seemed to like stories when I was little, so I liked telling stories. And then there's certain things I just liked, that I enjoyed and, like a lot of kids, I love dinosaurs, I love cars and trucks and playing with them, and then I love my siblings and I think having that basis as a child the things that you love and something you're proud about yourself I think that's the foundation for what can become a healthy life.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I'm kind of jumping around here, but do you ever spend time with your inner child?
Speaker 2:That's really funny, I don't. That sounds like a really good idea, though that's a really good idea. Um, sometimes I think if there's someone who makes you angry, I look at them and I picture them as a child or as a really old person, because it's easy to love a child and it's easy to love someone who's older, and so if someone is kind of a jerk, I see as a little kid they probably were like a good kid and it lets me accept people. But I like that idea of living in your inner child. I'm going to think a lot about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, my soul coach was telling me about that and I need to get the picture somewhere.
Speaker 1:But I used to wear leopard pants in my head when I was little I was like three years old because I didn't have any hair and I remember looking in the mirror saying this looks like hair, and my parents were kind of cool because they let me go to the grocery store with these leopard pants on my head, go to the bank, wherever I was going with them, and they just didn't care.
Speaker 1:And so I think from a young age I learned that I could be myself and express myself and be creative. But whenever I am not feeling my best or I want to put myself down, my soul coach is like you need to think about that version of yourself, the one wearing the pants on your head. Would you be mean to her? And so now I think about that a lot and and I will sit and have my Dunkin Donuts coffee with her and just like honor her, and it's been a part of my, my meditation practice, where I'm like I'm not going to be mean to myself, I'm not going to practice negative self-talk anymore, because she doesn't deserve it.
Speaker 2:I have a friend. That's amazing. I love that story. I have a friend who was struggling a lot with a pretty severe anxiety disorder and depersonalization disorder, but pretty serious case of it and she found she's over her mom's house. This is a woman who was in her 30s and she's visiting her mom and she found a little photo of herself. It was like one inch by two inches and maybe it was from a school photo. I'm not sure what it was from, but it's from when she was maybe five years old or four years old. And she looked at this photo and just cried and said look at this little girl, how safe she is and how innocent she is. I love this little girl. And then she asked her mother if she could take the photo and she took it and she put it in her office, I think taped to her computer or something. And when she felt bad about herself she looked at that picture of herself as a little girl and she said it's all going to be okay.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's how I feel. It's all going to be okay, that's beautiful, Wow, and it's and it hits so hard. It hits so heavy when you think about that, that younger version and and I think about that a lot with other people as well. So I relate a lot with what you said about that person was once a child and what are they hurting from? And sometimes I'll notice that's projection. This person is struggling and ultimately, that's why I really wanted to help people is because I know what that felt like and I know what was missing like and I know what was missing and know where the gaps were and I care a lot about people.
Speaker 1:So I am so excited to ask you this question because there's such interlapse and I've noticed when I was in the very early stages of development and choosing colors for my app and noticing the psychology around colors. And I know in past interviews you've done you've talked about your experience living with bipolar disorder and your relationship to color. So I'm curious when designing a product, what do you think about the emotional and psychological impact of color Like? Have you ever tested how colors affect user behavior? Have you thought about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and different products that I've designed over the years will have different color themes based upon does the product want to say, you know, bright and sparkly, like I'm going to give you energy. Does it want to be something that gives you calmness and make something complicated less stressful? And, based upon what the product is trying to do and the voice of the product, you can come up with different color themes. I'm not a color expert myself, but I react to color very strongly, particularly when I'm going through hypomanic phases. Colors are really intense for me when I drive down the street. Also, color changes during the day at different times of the day and the hour before sunset.
Speaker 2:For me, color is the most interesting. And there'll be a building I'll drive by every day on my way to work a brick, let's say. It's a red brick building, but the color red is different based on what time of the day it is and it just really connects to me like watching colors change. I love the fall foliage in New England. It's almost like orgasmic, just like this incredible burst of color really touches me.
Speaker 1:So in products I care a lot about color but I have friends who are like color experts and I consult on them to put together certain palettes and what does it feel within your body when you're talking about your connection with color, like, do you feel it in your shoulders, you feel it in your chest and in my heart wow, and how does that, in that moment, impact your mood, when you're thinking about and you're feeling the colors?
Speaker 2:usually it's excitement, but different colors can invoke different feelings for me. Some colors can impact me to be to slow down and to just be present and not to talk, and other colors can kind of motivate me to have high energy and get excited and come up with new ideas and have stimulating discussions. I know that restaurants of some restaurants pick their colors quite carefully to try to make people hungry and I'm told that red is a common color in restaurants, that that makes people hungry, which I always found really amusing. But yeah, color impacts me a lot.
Speaker 1:I love that, and do colors bring up memories for you at all?
Speaker 2:I love that, and do colors bring up memories for you at all? More of my memories? That's interesting. Sometimes that's true. More often it's a scent that'll trigger a memory for me. Sometimes, when I smell peppers on a grill, like if someone is grilling green bell peppers, that's triggering to me to when I first took piano lessons, because I took piano lessons from this older Italian woman and she would often cook peppers. Her house smelled like peppers and so I smell peppers on a grill. I trigger back to those early piano lessons.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so interesting. I know that for me, smells and certain sounds trigger certain memories for me. So I'm curious, when we're thinking about mental health in general, mental health apps, that of course there's mental health. There's so many mental health apps out there. I'm curious for you as a technologist and someone who's navigated some mental health challenges where do you see the biggest gaps right now and what do we need more of to really support and accomplish this mental health epidemic and really support people? I know that's a very big question. No, there is a mental health epidemic and really support people. I know that's a very big question.
Speaker 2:No, there is a mental health epidemic and there's also a loneliness epidemic, and I think that technology has not been great with this. Like technology, what it's doing is just flooding our senses. You know, we get more emails a day now than we did 20 years ago, more Slack messages, more instant messages, more instant messages, more Instagram messages and we just flooded. And we also get these little dopamine hits and we end up doom scrolling, you know, and people are reading less books now, which is really sad because they're used to like hit, hit, hit, hit. You know these short TikTok clips and they don't have the stamina to sit down quietly and read a 400-page book anymore, and I think that's really sad and scary.
Speaker 2:So I think technology hasn't been good for mental health because it's just pummeling us with too much info, too much ads, too much clickbaiting, too much divisiveness, and I think there needs to be a way to silence that and to encourage more conversation and more listening and more in-person. So I think about that a lot with some of the apps that I work on is how to get less of the noise and more of the connection and even like, when you talk about mental health, the community that I built, the bipolar social club. That's all about connection. And when someone emails in the middle of a panic attack, I did this crazy thing, I'm so embarrassed. People email them back at two in the morning, say this is my cell phone number, call me, like they're there for each other and it just means the world to people to have like a real relationship.
Speaker 2:So if technology can help form real relationships and real things away from the computer and away from the phone, it's done a good things. But we somehow need more encouragement of that. The problem is that people running these companies, like Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, he doesn't give a shit about you going out running with friends, unless maybe wearing meta glasses and listening to you know something, some meta product on your headphones. They just don't care about it. All they care about is the click bait you're clicking on ads. So somehow we need to find ways to encourage people go for a walk, like go for a walk with a friend.
Speaker 1:Can you tell me more about Bipolar Social Club? I did check out the website and it looks incredible. How do people connect? Is it an application? How can they connect with people and build community on Bipolar Social Club?
Speaker 2:The fundamental thing is it's an email list with 400 people. There's emails every day about different steps on people's journeys positive and negative, and questions for the group about different topics. We also do Zoom meetings weekly and different amount of people show up Sometimes it's 20, sometimes less, sometimes more. We also have sort of like chapters in different cities, kind of informal. So we've done meetups and I've been to them in Boston and New York and it's really just finding someone who, like, looks like me I don't mean physically, but someone who's been through the journey that I've been on. And there's something kind of incredible when you get those people together.
Speaker 2:We recently got together at a coffee shop in Boston. We sat outside, it was a nice day and just sitting around I think there were five of us and just sitting around this table, looking at the five of us, saying like they know all my secrets, because all the crazy shit that I've done, they've done it too. And it just was both comfort and excitement to be with people who have this, have the same journey as you and even though we might talk about similar things when I'm in other groups, like what books you're reading, what movies you're watching or what's your next trip, which are common things to talk about. There's a foundation of similarity that establishes a friendship.
Speaker 1:That's different than if you're with someone just random it's a beautiful thing to feel heard and seen and validated. So that's, that's beautiful. And how can I support bipolar social club? What can I do to support?
Speaker 2:um, just tell bipolar friends to come join us. And, yeah, just spread the word to people who have bipolar illness that there's a community out there who wants them to come join us.
Speaker 1:I love that and I will. I will share. This is beautiful, it's all. It's so important to build that community because when you're struggling, it can feel intimidated to a minute to yourself and your body that you're struggling. It can feel intimidated to a admit it to yourself and your body that you're struggling and then be to say the words out loud that you're struggling. So that's so important. So, in one word and this is always really hard what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 2:Kindness. If I said a couple of words would be to alleviate kindness. That's kind of my life mission. Um, I want my. I want people to say he tried to be kind like he cared about it and he worked at it. He was kind and he worked at being kind wow, thank you.
Speaker 1:well, I felt that way. I felt so inspired when you came and did that talk at SLP, because not enough people are able to be as brave as you are about your journey, and it helps the next generation of just people in general, but also founders. It gave me permission to go like no, I can also be vulnerable too, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
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