The MindSpa Podcast
The MindSpa Podcast is your go-to space for meaningful conversations around mental health, healing, and personal growth. Hosted by Michelle Massunken RSW and Tina Wilston RP, co-founders of MindSpa Mental Health Centre, each episode explores key mental health topics through expert interviews and thoughtful roundtable discussions.
From managing stress and building stronger relationships to navigating invisible challenges, the MindSpa Podcast offers grounded, professional insights in a warm and accessible way. Tune in weekly for supportive, real-world conversations to help you feel seen, supported, and empowered on your wellness journey.
The MindSpa Podcast
Ep 8 Narcolepsy & Entrepreneurship: Building Success While Managing Chronic Illness
What does it take to build a thriving business when your body demands rest in unpredictable ways? Michelle Wieger, founder and CEO of Venture Creative Collective, offers a masterclass in turning limitations into your greatest advantage.
Michelle's journey began not with confidence, but necessity. Diagnosed with narcolepsy after years of overwhelming fatigue, she realized traditional employment would be impossible. Rather than abandoning her ambitions, she created a business model that worked with her condition rather than against it. This pivot led to the creation of her Ottawa-based agency known for "website-in-a-day" magic that transforms digital overwhelm into elegant, functional solutions.
Throughout our conversation, Michelle shares the reality of her diagnostic journey—the confusion of falling asleep at microscopes during university, the failed career dreams, and the friend who finally suggested the test that changed everything. Her candid revelations about narcolepsy symptoms, from hypnagogic hallucinations to cataplexy (temporary muscle paralysis triggered by strong emotions), create profound awareness about this often misunderstood condition.
Most powerfully, Michelle reveals how she's translated personal energy management into revolutionary business practices. At VCC, flexibility isn't just permitted—it's encouraged. Team members structure their days around health needs because Michelle understands firsthand that sustainable productivity requires honoring our bodies. Her approach to automation and efficiency, born from necessity, has positioned her as a pioneer in business innovation.
Michelle's bestselling book "Don't Snooze on Your Dreams" and her mission to speak on 100 stages in two years are dismantling stereotypes about chronic illness while providing practical tools for anyone facing limitations. Her story proves that boundaries create the intersection where ambition and rest can coexist—and sometimes, what seems like your greatest weakness becomes the foundation of your unique success.
Join us for this inspiring conversation that will forever change how you view limitations in your own life and business.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the MindSpot podcast. We're so glad you're here. Today. We're diving into a conversation that blends entrepreneurship, creativity, resilience and yes, a very real relationship with rest, because our guest today is someone who's not only building websites and automations, but redefining what it means to pursue big dreams with a chronic condition. Michelle Wieger is the founder and CEO of Venture Creative Collective, an Ottawa-based agency that's best known for their website-in-a-day magic, and I say magic because I've experienced it firsthand.
Speaker 1:Michelle is the brain and heart behind our own site and systems. She takes the messy middle of digital overwhelm and transforms it into something elegant, functional and empowering. She's known around here as our website person, but honestly, that title doesn't do her justice. She launched VCC back in 2012,. Fresh out of university and despite living with narcolepsy, a condition that dramatically affects how and when our body demands rest, she built a multimillion dollar company that helps hundreds of clients bring their vision to life. In 2020, she became the youngest ever recipient of the Ottawa Board of Trades 40 Under 40 Award. She's also an accomplished public speaker, using stages and platforms across North America to speak openly and powerfully about what it means to be an entrepreneur with a chronic illness.
Speaker 1:And if that was not enough, Michelle recently released her bestselling book Don't Snooze on your Dreams.
Speaker 1:It's equal parts inspiring and practical.
Speaker 1:She shares her story, her challenges and her strategies with the kind of clarity that makes you feel like you're sitting across from a friend who gets it. It's not just a book. It's a permission slip for anyone who's ever felt like their limitations might be the end of their story. Michelle shows us that she can actually. Sorry. Michelle shows us that they okay, sorry, can I just read that paragraph back over? And if that wasn't enough, michelle recently released her bestselling book Don't Snooze on your Dreams. It's equal parts inspiring and practical. She shares her story, her challenges and her strategies with the kind of clarity that makes you feel like you're sitting across from a friend who gets it. It's not just a book. It's a permission slip for anyone who's ever felt like their limitations might be the end of their story. Michelle shows us they can actually be the beginning. So, whether you're a small business owner, a creative or someone managing health challenges or just a human trying to live a meaningful life without burning out, this episode is for you. Let's get into it, hey, michelle.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, we're going to dive in with our first question just to kind of get us started, and so we're going to start with sort of origin story and motivation. So you founded Venture Creative Collection in 2012. What gave you the confidence to launch your own agency straight out of university?
Speaker 3:So confidence is a funny word here. I wasn't confident. I had no options. I didn't know what was wrong with me at that point. I just knew I every day felt like I'd been hit by a truck or had the flu, like that level of exhaustion, no matter how much I slept. And if I was given a moment of quiet, even in a public place like a movie theater or a dentist office or anywhere, I would fall asleep. So I knew there was something seriously wrong, didn't know what it was at that point, and so I knew a nine to five job at a desk like I was going to get fired the first week. So it became a survival tactic. Where what can I do that gives me some chance of success? Awesome, and your own business? I mean, it's a lot of work, but you also have the power. The only person you're letting down if you fall asleep is yourself, and so I went for it.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. One of the things that I know about you is the fact, though, that, in school, you had started out in on a different path and you had to adjust, and what I wasn't sure about is like where, at that point, did you start realizing that this is like, this is narcolepsy, and I have to start planning my future, knowing this, and what part of it was just you were adapting to the symptoms that you had.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was going to be a neurosurgeon. That was plan.
Speaker 1:A.
Speaker 3:Plan B pilot, so very low achieving dreams here.
Speaker 3:And that started because, on take your kid to work day, my mom's was a social worker at the Ottawa Hospital and the very first person that day when she said oh hey, this is my daughter, can she be in the room? No, absolutely not, I don't want any teenagers in here. And so I was sitting outside her office on the floor waiting no big deal, and this guy in some scrubs came by and hey, are you Evelyn's daughter? Yeah, do you want to come to work with me? Okay, I didn't even know what he did. I'll go. He was the lead neurosurgeon at the Ottawa Hospital. He invented something called the cyber knife, which is now widely used, but it's a less invasive surgical tool for brain surgery. And I got to go into the OR with this man and the only person closer to the patient than me was him.
Speaker 3:Even the nurses were further back, so I had my hands behind my back the whole time, obviously, and six hours went by like six minutes and I was obsessed. So, from age 16 onwards, like that was the plan. That was what I was working towards until I fell asleep on a microscope and I realized there's something seriously wrong in university.
Speaker 1:And so that was in university. So the falling asleep on the microscope was already in university, the first time I fell asleep in public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was 17.
Speaker 3:So, first year university, because I was already there by 17, had those big dreams to fill and I switched programs into something more physical. So that was the first adaptation based on symptoms was a room where they turn the lights off, which you need for microscopes. I couldn't do it, it was. I fell asleep every time like within a minute, so I had to shift. That must have been so confusing, though so confusing. And you go to the doctor and they they do what they should right Iron tests, thyroid tests, depression quizzes. I'm 17 years old, then 18, then 19. And you go through these same tests over and over, which is frustrating, but it's also logical. That's what most people with tiredness at that age have is one of those.
Speaker 1:So it took three years before they ordered a sleep test.
Speaker 3:No, it took. I was in my mid-20s about 22, when a friend of mine actually told me you need to tell your doctor that you think you have sleep apnea and get a sleep study. And I just laughed at her and I'm like I don't have narcolepsy. She specifically thought I had narcolepsy.
Speaker 3:Okay, she just knew it could get diagnosed through a sleep apnea test, which is a lot more likely to get prescribed because it's much more common and, to be fair, I could have had it. The symptoms align that extreme exhaustion, no matter how much you sleep, never feel rested. And so I went in for that sleep test and when everyone else got sent home at 7 am they said you get to stay here and do a daytime test with us, which is for narcolepsy.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry you go.
Speaker 2:So how has that? So I know the entrepreneurship piece was important knowing how it evolved through university to help create that flexibility and balance of your day. So how has that sort of transitioned to how you live your life on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it originally started. Although I say I've done all this because I have narcolepsy, it's I did all this because of the symptoms. The actual diagnosis, of course, is important, but the management of the systems is what created everything, all these habits and decisions and the beginning of this business. And so, once I was diagnosed, it just solidified that, yes, this is the correct path. But the momentum was already in place because I think I was about 23 when I was diagnosed and the symptoms started at 17. So five years, which is actually very lucky. The average time to diagnosis, uh, according to studies out of the United States, is 10 to 15 years for narcolepsy. Yeah, so if I think now I'm 34 right now. I was diagnosed 11 years ago. So I everything that I've done and accomplished between diagnosis time and last year. I could have still been struggling that whole time If that one friend hadn't said hey, sleep, study. We all need those friends who are willing to say something and suggest something.
Speaker 2:And does it just get misdiagnosed at times? Or is it just overlooked Like what's been the barrier? It's so rare yeah.
Speaker 3:So most doctors I've met I'm the first narcoleptic they've met and so the good ones ask questions, lots of questions Like what words did you say before you were diagnosed? That weren't picked up on. And an example of that is we'll say tired, but we're not tired, we're sleepy If you're, lots of people are tired. But if you gave them a chance to sit down quietly, no phone in a public place, would they fall asleep? Most would not, Right, we do. Yeah, so it's. There's those little tiny differences in how the questions can be asked. That would help lead to an earlier diagnosis, but it is so rare.
Speaker 1:Now, you said something to me before about was it China? And that you Japan, japan. Sorry, tell that story, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've heard that in Japan they have a higher diagnosis rate of narcolepsy, at one in 1,000, compared to Canada, and the US is one in 2,000. So the original thought was, oh, is there a genetic or ethnographic component to it? But what it is is that they give sleep studies to young adults and there it's for productivity. They want to catch sleep apnea early and treat it Very smart and by proxy they're catching the people with narcolepsy and getting them diagnosed very young, because it starts in your late teens, early 20s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is why I'm glad we're having this conversation, because this raises a lot of awareness you know for our audience, for younger folks as well, too. Yeah, they might think that I'm just really sleepy or had a bad night, but if it's repeating itself and it's continuous, there might be more to it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you get to sleep in on the weekend and you still feel like you're as tired as if you were before the weekend, that's not normal. That's not being a teenager. That's not growing pains. There's something very wrong that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 1:Wow, and when it comes to that diagnosis, is there any other sort of symptoms that often come with narcolepsy? Because we know that if you're not getting good, healthy sleep, it's really hard to have good mental health right Cause anxiety, depression, all those kinds of things. So is there a correlation there there?
Speaker 3:definitely is so both anxiety and depression. Thankfully I didn't have to experience that, but it is very common and the symptoms that are most often missed and I missed them in myself looking back is so clear. But that overwhelming exhaustion was the only thing I ever mentioned to doctors. But sleep paralysis so when you're having a dream and it's bad and you can't move, you can't breathe. That is part of narcolepsy. So is what they call hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations. So when you're going into sleep or coming out of sleep, your brain is in both stages at the same time. And so I didn't realize that normal people never woke up to a room full of butterflies for like 10 seconds. Like I thought that's just what dreams do. Like when people talk about daydreaming, that's what you thought they were talking about Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly Like yeah, me too, but I've never had it in the afternoon, only when I'm waking up and go to sleep. But you know, maybe they're the weird ones, so that one's a major one. And then cataplexy, so that's the temporary muscle paralysis caused by strong emotions. So big belly laughter for me will make my legs totally give out like fall on the floor. Oh wow. And again, now that I've told you you're going to see it everywhere In TV shows, people will fall down when they're laughing, and so I didn't realize that doesn't actually happen. That's just like an overacting comedic thing.
Speaker 1:I never thought of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I thought it happened to everybody. That's wild, yeah, wow, now what about?
Speaker 1:surprise. Because, that's one that we can't control. There are certain emotions that you can sort of like know, and you can kind of sit down, but a surprise would be a surprise emotional thing.
Speaker 3:Surprise is one of the most dangerous ones, I think, for people with narcolepsy. I'm very fortunate For me it's muscles in my lower back. I don't know exactly which ones, but if someone surprises me my back will hurt super bad after. But one of my very close friends. For her it's her full body for every strong emotion. So she once fell down the stairs because a fire alarm went off.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:She collapsed in a snowbank on Christmas Eve and got frostbite because someone honked their horn.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Just at someone else who happened to be walking by. Yeah, so surprise is very dangerous and it's what makes a lot of people with narcolepsy very insular.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So for me, with my service dog, she will alert before the cataplexies happen, to help interrupt the thing. So if my husband's telling terrible dad jokes, which are unfortunately funny, she'll start to. If it gets too close to me, collapsing, she'll just start to come between us and nudging, or nudging me to be like hey, go away, change the topic wow, which is great, very helpful.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So how has all of this influenced the culture that you've, that you've built at VCC?
Speaker 3:so I I like to be very flexible, but still you have to run a business right With our employees. So an example is one of our team members wants to go to the gym over their lunch break every day, and so they take their hour lunch as the gym and they need 15 minutes on either side to get there and back. Okay, you work till 530, then no big deal, because it's better for their mental and physical health. So why would I say no? I know what that flexibility and understanding of myself does for me, so I would be a foolish leader to not listen to team members who want the same. I have someone else who, once a week, has a virtual therapy appointment right in the middle of the day. Great, no problem. Again, they're doing what's best for them, which in the end, is what's also best for the business. It's just logical.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it surprise you how few leaders, though, seem to understand that it is a strange phenomenon that it just seems so obvious, right? So it's just curious, like okay, if this is so obvious, why would you push back against it, especially when it really is? We have learned through COVID that it's these core business hours that are really important, everybody's present, but everything on either side of that is actually really flexible.
Speaker 2:I don't think leaders appreciate that right, even recognizing how important it is like the core business hours and how I'm supporting my staff or the employees during those period of time how that affects their performance, their productivity. It affects even their commitment to the work that they're doing as well too. On so many levels, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And trust does have to be built right.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 3:If I didn't trust that the main work would be completed regardless of a slight time shift, then it would be very difficult to allow for those things.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a different conversation.
Speaker 3:Exactly, there's responsibility for the individuals to come through on the commitment, right, and I think leaders have to give them the chance to do that. Yeah, and then after that, it's the employee's job to come through on their commitment, which most do Right.
Speaker 1:Well, most will when they're getting that flexibility right. So, absolutely so. One of the other we're curious about because entrepreneurship, which we're very familiar with is it's glorified. Right, there is this view of what it's like, but really it is 24-7. It is mentally exhausting. It isn't a nine to five by any stretch of the imagination. So how do you manage that with managing your energy?
Speaker 3:imagination. So how do you manage that with managing your energy? I have done the hustle thing in the early days. You have to. Unfortunately, there's no way around that, and it was terrible for my health, physically, that's for sure. And now I try to be very wise about how I'm using the time. So I'm not doing a meeting before 9am Okay Period Because if I wake up before then, the day is harder the whole day.
Speaker 3:I also really want to be back at my house, no matter how great a business event or friend event I'm at is, by 10pm, because if it's later than that, again the next day is so much harder, yeah, and trying to make up for those things is so hard. So being aware of the timings and activities that drain me more, yeah. And look, if it's a fun event, would I rather stay till 10? Heck, yeah, right, but I have to drive at least an hour to go home, so I have to go by nine and the benefit of staying, although in the moment when you're already in it and it's so fun, feels like it will be more. It never is, and I've learned these things over time by really documenting like which days do I feel just neutral or positive, or even slightly negative and trying to match up what behaviors have created that and unfortunately, I try. Unfortunately, I have learned over the last five months that the whole like going to the gym and eating healthy thing actually works and it actually does give me more energy.
Speaker 1:It's very irritating right, very, that's insightful. Yeah, why can't eating crappy and being sedentary make you feel like come?
Speaker 2:on now give us options.
Speaker 3:I went all in on it, uh, both sides, yeah, and but it was another experiment. I do a lot of experiments and some of them end like this, where now, unfortunately, I have to go to the gym forever and eat lots of protein, yeah, and other things I try. It doesn't really make much of a difference. So I tried, like Pilates or yoga, and I didn't find that. For me personally, the mindfulness things like that brought the same benefit as mindfulness things like gardening or even weight training with the type of music that, depending on whatever mood I want to create, you know, if I want to feel inspired, then we're going to go for some of those big, bold voices that are deep and soulful, and if I just, if I'm frustrated, let's go to the rap and let's just lift some.
Speaker 3:So I learned over the last 13 years, but mostly in the last four, how much control I actually have over how I feel day to day and what I allow my energy to be used for, and the things that give me energy back, versus the things and people that just suck it away.
Speaker 1:I hear boundary setting in there Loud and clear Right.
Speaker 2:Loud and clear. Loud and clear, you can actually have ambition and rest intersect by having clear boundaries.
Speaker 3:That's the part of you know those circles like the three circles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Venn diagrams, venn diagrams.
Speaker 3:The only way that you can have all three is if boundaries in there you have to.
Speaker 1:It has to be the middle spot. It has to Well, I was wondering part of your passion is actually automation and I was wondering if your experience in entrepreneurship, if it made you say I really need to focus on automation because I need to conserve my energy and I want to give that to all the other entrepreneurs and all the other people because you know the importance of it.
Speaker 3:That was exactly it. I taught myself to code through online classes at MIT because I realized I can't compete with the normal people without automation, because when you're starting the business, you can't hire someone, you're barely getting by yourself, right, and so having a robot that could do some of that minutiae, that would suck my energy, yeah, so helpful. So this was back when the only automation day to day was like doors that opened at the grocery store.
Speaker 1:Like, not even automatic checkouts, just the doors.
Speaker 3:So I was doing this really, really, really early. And then, when AI came to the picture, same thing.
Speaker 1:You must be so excited with all the extra tools that are available now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I try and stay at the forefront of any new tech that can help conserve energy. My largest piece of advice for anyone starting a business, disabled or otherwise, is really take a true inventory of what you do really well and what you struggle with, and a lot of people put the big focus on the negative, but you only need one tool to cover off the negative, and for me it was a lot of automation. For people with ADD, which is very common now with entrepreneurs, find yourself a work buddy that you will both do your work side by side. That's it.
Speaker 3:It's such an easy thing, one tool, body doubling.
Speaker 2:Yes, right.
Speaker 3:If you have anxiety, great, let's make lists of tasks that need to be done and we just stick to it. We don't get to second guess. We follow what we need to do. There's one simple tool can negate the negative and at that point you focus on the positive. So for me, I'm very good at looking at systems. I'm very good at finding streamlining. I'm super good at efficiency because I have to be so. Let's focus on that, because nobody else will be better than me at that, and that's where I need to put my focus, not on the negative part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we can really get hyper-focused on the negative part. Amplify that, magnify that, but, if anything, use a tool to manage that and then focus and highlight the positive aspects of things.
Speaker 3:Especially in the age of social media. Right, there's so many videos about the negatives of almost every condition that it's so easy to get sucked back into that. But they're doing that to get views. You don't want your future. Your future is more important than giving views to someone who's trying to just keep you in a negative spiral.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Can you tell us more about your book and your speaking engagement and stuff? We'd love to hear more about that.
Speaker 3:Don't snooze your dreams. It's part self-help, part memoir, but not the gross condescending kind of self-help. It's very real, just like this conversation. I say all the things in my journey that I did, that I wish I hadn't or I shouldn't have, or that I would have loved to have a friend that said, hey, how about, instead of this, we do this and the goal is to help other people get through what they're currently dealing with to the other side faster by sharing my journey. Very real, very funny, but also full of real tools like actual, tangible, easy things to do.
Speaker 1:I love how it's laid out Very practical. I love how the book is laid out very much, so you can just grab those pieces when you need them and refer back to them which is really great.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then your speaking engagements.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm on a mission to speak on 100 stages in two years, so we're about halfway through that, wow. And I recently became a member of CAPS, which is the Canadian Association of Public Speakers. Okay, that is a awesome milestone, because they have a financial requirement of speaking fees that you've earned to be able to be a member, so I was very proud to be able to achieve that, which is hard to earn fees as a speaker.
Speaker 1:People listening might not realize a lot of the speakers. Some speakers you see actually pay to be able to speak To be on platforms.
Speaker 3:A lot of people are doing that, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 3:Well, we're lucky to have you on our podcast, which is amazing. And so what's next? For BCC, projects take up to six months, like 64 back and forth emails, and it's not fun. It's not fun for you, it's not fun for me, it's not fun for my team, but that's just how it's done, right. But why Disrupt the industry? I love that, shake it up a little bit, and so it went back to that. Efficiency for me, like this, is not an efficient way of doing it, but everyone is doing it anyways. Could we do it differently? And when we've had projects for ourselves, like my speaker website, my husband and I, who work in the business with me, we just sat down and we just made it in a day, right? So why couldn't we do that?
Speaker 3:with clients, and so we've done that and it's a huge hit. Everyone prefers it yeah, clients and us. So we're always looking for ways to do that type of thing where I'm modeling what I do in my own life of energy conservation and efficiency, but for other people.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. That's beautiful, and thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for sharing it with our audience and allowing us to be inspired to do the same thing, you know, and being efficient in what we do, efficient in how we work, setting clear boundaries in how we work as well, too. I think those are very, very important nuggets and tools that we'll take with us for sure and reduce that burnout Exactly. Yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you so much, Michelle. We really appreciate this conversation.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me and hope we've helped at least one person listening. That's always the goal, that's always the goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, thank you.
