Leaders Go First Sponsor Story: Ariela Safira, Founder & CEO, Real

Speakers: . Ariela Safira (she/her), CEO & Founder, Real

Ariela Safira (she/her): Hi, my name is Ariela Safira, and I'm the Founder & CEO of Real, a mental health care company bringing a new therapy model to life. And I'm here today to tell you about my own mental health journey as a part of the Mind Share Partners Leaders Go First campaign. Now, when I think of my own mental health journey, I, you know, all of our mental health journeys started at birth, though I'll focus in on a more recent mental health experience or concern. And that is, you know,

Ariela Safira (she/her): And that is, you know, we have been building Real for the past call it three years and probably two years into building Real, I reached remarkable burnout, right? I am, like every founder, had spent years working on Real, having a phenomenally large list of things to do with a remarkably small team to get that done. And I had just finished Andy Dunn's book called Burn Rate where he talks about or story tells his experience building Bonobos.

Ariela Safira (she/her): And it must have been two days after reading his book that I woke up completely burnt out. I almost think that it gave me the language and the permission to breathe and really feel, really feel my feelings for the first time. And I just, I couldn't move forward. Right? I couldn't get out of bed I couldn't breathe for some time. I really froze and felt a sense of 'I can't move forward.' And I actually, I did take a meeting and a very important one at that and probably eight minutes in, felt and said aloud, you know, 'I can't say two more words. Why don't we wrap up this call?'

Ariela Safira (she/her): It was a real breaking point for me. And I run a mental health care company, right? I have this conversation all the time and yet, in that moment, I felt a sense of, I haven't once felt that I was reaching burnout. It wasn't until rock bottom that I would actually identify that issue and, you know, took some days off at that point and really worked to figure out how can I get better at identifying the signs early? And what became so clear to me was I need to surround myself with more examples that look like Andy Dunn's Burn Rate, and I need to hear the stories

Ariela Safira (she/her): so that I can learn, how does, how do these issues show up in other people? And how did do they reflect on their burnout? Right? And what would they use to identify, identify that they were getting worse? How would they get better? And of course, not every person's story is similar to mine and in many examples of others, I thought that's not how I am, but it was so helpful to hear the language of how others describe what they're going through and see examples of how this looks for other people so that I can form my own and identify my own. And it's something I've really implemented into my life since and enables me to prevent crisis, right? To quickly identify when like, okay, things are getting bad. I should, you know, take one fewer meeting today or whatever that might be. And there are a tremendous number of examples of similar mental health stories or journeys that I've experienced or dissimilar, but still mental health issues I've experienced.

And what's become so clear to me is that if we want to improve mental health, you know, and our peers, our coworkers, in our country, we need to give people more examples of what their mental health journeys look like in other people, right? And so often, I mean, I fully believe that leaders have the ability to drive change, right? When we share our stories, when we're honest about our mental health journeys, so many more individuals feel permission to tell their own story, but even more so feel actually they have the words finally to communicate what they have kept a secret for their entire lives. And I believe in that, though if we want leaders to be able to communicate their mental health stories, we need to teach them how, right? I always hear, so often hear individuals say we need more leaders to speak about their mental health journeys which I completely believe that will help employees, individuals, our country. But leaders don't know how, right? I'm a mental health founder, and I could say I'm still quite rusty at talking about my own personal, vulnerable mental health story. And we need the tools. Leaders need tools as well to work on their mental health, and then feel comfortable enough to share their stories aloud. And so, you know, my challenge to all people listening is we need to figure out how to, if we want leaders to go first, we need to help leaders get there, and whether that's building on tools to help and allow leaders to get there or investing in those that exist, you know? We really have the ability to change our country's state of mental health if we focus on those things, and I look forward to a world where we're all mentally well.