Learn from failure, don't quit - Josh Otero - S6 - E14

This episode of A Founder’s Life is brought to you by Thankz, helping founders scale with reliable remote talent. Get $1,000 off your first month by emailing founders@thankz.com with the subject line Founder’s Life.

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👤 Connect with Today’s Guest – Josh Otero

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshotero/
Elanah AI: https://elanah.ai
Warrior GMR Foundation: https://warriorgmrfoundation.org

What happens when a personal mission becomes a company with the potential to save lives?

In this episode, Josh Otero shares his journey from athlete, financial services professional, CrossFit gym owner, and entrepreneur to founding **Elanah AI**, a platform focused on mental readiness and proactive support for veterans, service members, and their families.

Josh explains how tragic events during COVID inspired him to launch the Warrior GMR Foundation and eventually create an AI-powered platform designed to provide confidential support when people need it most.

We also discuss mental health, resilience, endurance sports, leadership, family, and why entrepreneurs must learn to keep moving forward through failure.

What you’ll learn:

• How tragedy inspired the creation of Elanah AI
• Why mental readiness matters before crisis happens
• Lessons from ultra-marathons and Ironman races
• How failure helps entrepreneurs grow
• Why persistence is one of the most important founder traits

LinkedIn

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leogestetner.com/leo

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Transcript

0:00

Don't quit Push, you're gonna wanna quit. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities that you'll have to quit and it's gonna be easy to quit, but the hard thing is to keep going. So that's my biggest thing is believe in yourself and keep going and learn. Welcome to A Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Gestetner. On this show, we dive into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more balanced and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is sponsored by Thankz, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. Now I'm excited today to be joined by Josh Otero Josh, thanks for joining. Would you mind introducing yourself, please? Sure, well first of all, thanks for having me. My name is Josh Otero I am the CEO and co-founder of Elanah.AI and I am the founder and chairman of the Warrior GMR Foundation. Excellent. Can we talk a little bit about your journey that brought you to where you are today and then a little more about what you're doing with your current business? Absolutely. So I've been in the health and wellness space for 15 ish years. I've been an athlete all my life. I was a college athlete. And so I've always had, you know, the passion for, being a high performer, but I've also had the passion for helping others. I was spent 15 years or so in the financial services business. Um, I went through a divorce, had a chain, you know, wanted to stop suiting up every day and going into the office. I changed, started my entrepreneurial career and, had a CrossFit gym, had some sports tech startups, nutrition company. And then back in 2020, COVID was really starting to spike in I was working, I had a sports nutrition company really trying to provide a healthy alternative to the Red Bulls and the Monsters and the unhealthy drinks. And I saw something that really kind of sparked me to do something and that was, was in February of 2020, two cadets at the Air Force Academy took their life. And then a couple of months later, six sailors did the same that were stuck on a ship in Virginia Beach. And so I decided to start the Warrior GMR Foundation as a nonprofit with our mission to promote health, wellness, and community to ship through gaming. And that was my way of kind of contributing to the community, because I had never served, but I've always been passionate for the military and for veterans. And so I saw my opportunity to actually contribute. So we started the foundation. And the whole mission was really to help veterans and transitioning service members give them a platform. And because everybody was socially isolated, I started with Discord, which was, you know, it's a large online platform, a couple hundred million monthly users. But I saw it as a way we could do town hall sessions. We could host events, we could do gaming, and we could have live chats all in one platform. And so we started that and then we started doing these mental health summits. And we've done every one every year since we've started and about a year and a half ago we did one and we had the secretary of the VA as our keynote. And then he and I also were fortunate enough to do a town hall session. And one of the things that came out of that event was, or the questions that came out of the event was, in our Discord server, we've got a peer-to-peer support platform, which basically, you go into our Discord server, you're having troubles or you're stressed, you wanna talk to somebody, we've got a peer platform on there, and it just allows you to connect with somebody 24-7. But the question was, you we know that darkness doesn't hit at two o'clock in the afternoon. It hits at two o'clock in the morning. How many people do we actually have working at two o'clock in the morning? Couldn't answer that. Didn't know because everybody's voluntary. And so went home, really started to think about that, called my co-founder. she was teaching AI and building LLMs at one of the large FANG companies. And I said, Hey, can we build a company really to provide 24/7 seven, 365 confidential informed support to veterans, service members, and their families. And she said yes. So about a year and a half ago, we started Elanah.AI really with a mission of bridging no care to health care, really providing, you know, right now the US is 250,000, mental health professionals short, the VA is 40,000 short. And so ilana is a tool to be able to bridge that. And then about a couple months ago, beginning of the year, we saw this trend know, mental health is still very hard for people to talk about. We wanted to kind of go left of crisis. And so we started moving towards a proactive, which was more in the mental readiness space. And since then, it's really resonated. And so that brings us to today. So that's a little bit of backstory and kind of the evolution of where I've been, evolution of the foundation and the company, Elanah.AI. And just for context, Elanah is my oldest daughter's name. I named it after my oldest daughter. That's lovely. And sounds like you're really finding a space that needs help. There is, you know, and the more we dive into this, the bigger the need is. You know, I've spoken to hundreds of service members, hundreds of vets, probably more vets than service members, because I've been doing that for the last several years. And there's a big need for it. And the need for mental readiness is, you know, especially since COVID is really, I don't know, exponentially grown. And that need for proactive care and really understanding versus reacting has been a big, big growth over the last couple of years. That's lovely. And you mentioned earlier your daughter just now. So talk a little bit about what family looks like for you. So I have two grown daughters. My youngest is 21 and my oldest is 22. That's Elana. She'll be 23. We're a day apart. We were actually in the hospital. My ex-wife was about to deliver and she actually was in labor for 18 hours. So my birthday was July 1st. and we were expecting her. We went in like in the morning on July 1st. I'm like, oh yeah, we're going to have the same birthday. She didn't deliver till the second. So we have one day apart birthdays. they're my inspiration. They're kind of why, you know, push so hard better and to improve other people's lives. Yeah, I know the feeling. My kids are 20 and 23. yeah. And what does health look like for you? Whether that be mental health, which obviously a pretty important thing for you, whether that be physical health, nutrition, sleep, how does health look? So I take health very seriously. I work every day. I do something every day. You know, I track my sleep and my recovery. I eat clean. meditate every day. like to push myself. I've done ultra marathons, could that I practice what I preach. That's what's important. What do you like to do for fun? So I love to hike. I love to work out. I love to travel. to me, working out is kind of like a release. It's kind of like my home. Love being in the gym. I grew up, I was a college athlete. that's kind of my space that makes me feel good. And then I also like to be out in the middle of nowhere. when I was doing my ultra marathons, you know, I'd be running overnight. And so there was nobody, was me and the mountain lions and that's about it. And so it's peace, you know, I enjoy that. I enjoy the peace. So to me, the fun is going out, maybe hanging out with some friends, maybe going to the gym, hiking, traveling and spending time with family. And what did ultramarathons look like for you? I have hip issues now so I don't run as much anymore. I still train hard. But for me, ultra was like, you know, it's in here. Cause your body could do it. You know, if you've been training, your body can do it. So what I liked about it is it challenges this, right? Cause you want to quit at two o'clock in the morning when it's dark, you're all alone. You want to just say, you know, I'm just going to go to bed. Like what am I doing this? So you have to push and you have to push through that. The pain of your feet blistering and whatever else your body is going through and you have to push through. So that was, and then even like with the iron man's It was the same type of thing, right? You ride 112 miles and then you got to go run a marathon, but your legs are tired, your body's tired, your brain is tired, and you still got another four hours or more to go with the marathon. So, and then you're seeing these people pass you that you're like, I'm in better shape than that guy. Like, how are you passing me? So it's, it gets in your head too. Like I remember the first marathon I did, it was a downhill marathon and my quads were blown up. It was a Tucson marathon and I think I did it in like five hours. It was really slow and I had these old ladies passing me I forgot how old I was at the time. was probably in my 20s or late 20s, early 30s. And I'm like, how is this seven year old lady passing me when I'm like 30 years old in the prime of my life? And so it got me angry to the point where I was running a lot faster. But it's a good, like it gets in your head when you have a seven year old lady flying by you you're like, you know, how is this happening? So it's good for the mind to, know, the body's great, you know, that's one thing, but I think it's more of the mind and really pushing the mind and challenging the mind. I think that's a big part of what marathons are. I think these races are very much about challenging the mind and the mindset. I think that's a great lesson for life in many ways. It's pushing through. Because yeah, at some point you're like, why am I doing this? But it's pushing through that. And you're achieving, hopefully, for yourself, because that's the most important thing to do it for. Yeah, one of my old coaches used to say it's not the destination, it's the journey. And so like I would put that all into the training. like, for me, the competition itself was just like the fun part. To me, the real challenge was the training because the training is where it counts, right? If you're not, if you don't push yourself during training, the marathon is so that I never took the actual events seriously. took the prior to seriously. I'm competitive. So I always like to compete, but I only try to do my best. I never tried to do the best. try to do the best for me and the best better than I did the day before. And so if I didn't win, which I never won a marathon or ultra, but didn't care. Cause as long as I could sleep at night saying that I did my best during that race, I was, I was fine. And did I train for it or did I just slack? And so that was my big thing. And then the dichotomy between a marathon and an ultra marathon, you have people training, have cheering you on. You're part of a big, you know, thousands of people, you know, I did like the rock. and roll marathon there's 30,000 people or however many people there was and then the ultra you're all alone at night with the light on your head going you know so there's a whole different thing in here where you have everybody cheering for you and then one layer just alone and you're in your thoughts right you don't get in your thoughts when you're in the marathon because you have 10,000 other people with you we hear you're all alone middle of darkness 2 a.m. you're you're getting in here That's an interesting, you know, I did my first marathon 18 months ago and I've done five in the last 18 months. And the last one was a London marathon, I really was not happy with my time at all. So I'm, next one will be Chicago and I'm planning to substantially increase, well, increase my training because I did a lot of training, but improve my training. The other thing which I found interesting on London is the biggest ever organized marathon, they had 59,000 people. and I think next year they're moving it to two separate days. crowds were unbelievable. By far the most crowds I've seen in any marathon anywhere. I mean, I have no idea the numbers, but certainly north of 100,000, I wouldn't be surprised if it a couple of hundred thousand people. I mean, it was just massive crowds everywhere. Noise everywhere, lots of people cheering you on. The funny thing is, for most people, they'd love that. I actually didn't enjoy that. Maybe it's partly, you know, I'm hard of hearing and that non-stop noise. Yeah, one the things I love when I'm running is a bit of peace and quiet. So yes, you're not going to peace and quiet on a marathon. But if you look at most, they're cheering and then they've got certain corners that there aren't many people, you know, so there's a bit of a mix. This was just non-stop. And for most people, I think they'd absolutely love it. For me, it was like... I wish I'd brought noise-cancelling headphones with me, because I actually like a bit of peace and quiet. I like to be in my own thoughts sometimes. I'm not sure if want to be in my own thoughts the whole time that you're talking about for like 24 hours, whatever you're doing, but it's nice to get a bit of peace and quiet. yeah, I did the Phoenix Marathon. I don't think there was 100,000 people watching, but you have a lot of people and you're always going and you people running by you all the time or you're running by people. It's never like, you're never alone. There's a hundred percent of the time you're with somebody, whether that's your thousand people that are fans or your 50 people that you're running next to. But yeah, you're never alone in a marathon or I've never been alone in a marathon. Ultra, you're alone most of the time, but with the marathon, you're never alone. Yeah, you don't get that peace and quiet, but that's why I do the hiking and stuff too, because you get all the quiet time you want, especially where I hike is in the middle of nowhere. what to you does a balanced life look like? So, you know, again, I look at a balanced life as that center line where none of us are permanently in balance, but overall, how do you sort of balance those different aspects of your life? I go I'd like to go hard I think for balance for me is if I'm operating on all cylinders and you know the only thing that I will do is occasionally if I have time I'll take like a 20 minute nap during the day which I don't get to that often but you know once a month when I'm pushing hard and I'll have a little break and I'll you know go down take a nap that's my like balance but I I mean for me balance is is making sure that I get in my meditations, making sure that I'm doing some of the stuff for me. Because you get too busy and too much into work and then I think you lose productivity. I think, you know, there's people that work like 20 hours a day and I don't think you're as productive when you're working 20 hours a day than if you have some time for me. I did this brain study and you know, it says I have to take five, five minute breaks a day with no phone and no people just to recharge. So I've been trying to do more stuff like that as I do more internal work and do testing on myself to see where are my weaknesses, where are my strengths. And you know, that was one of them is like, Hey, you need break. Cause I do work a lot, but now I'm you know I'm intentionally taking a break during the day. I'm walking, going out in nature, so that's something that like from my brain study it's that I have to do and so I've been doing that. That makes sense. And what has been a pivotal moment in your life? my kids have been pivotal parts of my life. you know, certain relationships have been a pivotal parts of my life. Starting the foundation was a pivotal part of my life. And then starting the company was a pivotal part of my life. And I think that's just because I saw it opened up doors that weren't traditionally available. And then some were me doing more than I realized I was capable of doing. And so achieving next level, next level, next level has been important. And that's just different things being unlocked through experiences or starting things. And then a lot of it, know, my last company failed. And so you learn a lot through failure. And so I've learned a lot through a lot of failures and, know, then I grow, learn, build. And you look at like the average entrepreneur, they failed like seven businesses before they had their first success. And so, you know, I've learned a lot through failures and through growth opportunities. I think we learn more through failure than we do for success. So think you're definitely right there. And what's one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? Don't quit Push, you're gonna wanna quit. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities that you'll have to quit and it's gonna be easy to quit, but the hard thing is to keep going. So that's my biggest thing is believe in yourself and keep going and learn. Because if you keep failing and you're not learning, then there's something wrong. So learn, don't quit. Nice, and how can people find you? so my LinkedIn is, just, you know, linkedin forward slash Josh Otero. And then the websites are warrior, GMR foundation.org. And then a company's website is Elanah.AI, E L A N AH.ai, but most of my stuff is on LinkedIn. Well thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, tell your friends and please leave a review.