#5 - Sean Ruane - The Biggest Breakthrough In Mental Health!

:: 00:09

Sean, pleasure to have you on the podcast today. I think I just wanted to start off by asking who is Sean? Who is Sean to everyone watching out there? What is it you do and why have I brought you on today? Really Well, thank you so much for inviting me on.

:: 00:22

Firstly, so it's a real pleasure to be here. Who is Sean? That's a really good question. I feel like I'm almost embarrassing like answering it, but I guess the thing that I like to stand for most at the moment is being a champion of men's mental health or mental health in general. I'm the founder of a technology company called Mind Data, and I'm sure we'll come on to that a little bit later, but my life's mission is to improve the mental wellbeing of 1 million people around the world. So if there's one thing that I would love people to kind of think of me, that would be it. That life's goal. That would be pretty cool, I think.

:: 00:54

Can you tell us a bit more about Mind Data and what sort of the journey that led to Mind Data? Because you worked you had a job before in HR, I read and now you're sort of mental health technology space, would you say.

:: 01:07

Yeah.

:: 01:07

More technology and like mixing technology and mental health.

:: 01:10

Can you tell us about?

:: 01:10

Mind Data and what the work is you guys are doing.

:: 01:13

Yeah, of course. So Mind Data is a web-based platform that supports both the professional and the client or patient on, so basically both sides of the table, if you will. So if we start with the client or patient ends of things, what we do is we provide them with a digital journal that enables them to track how they're feeling and why, whenever they need to, as many times a day as they like, and then what we do is we take this insight from the journal, the experience tracker, and we share that directly with the professional. The idea is that, with this insight, we can have more effective therapy related conversations. And you know, we've also bolted on a few other pieces of technology to support the professionals, such as, you know, secure note-taking, scheduling of appointments, you know, things like that to help them run their businesses smoother. So, fundamentally, our technology supports human to human therapy. Our number one goal is to not replace humans you know, it's to facilitate and enhance that relationship.

So that's what Mind.

:: 02:12

Data does so sort of like helping therapists and the person seeing the therapist like better understand what's going on in your day-to-day life. So it's not just going to a therapy session and running through. They can keep track of what's going on day-to-day bit like a diary in a way for the therapist. Is that the awesome?

:: 02:28

Yeah exactly yeah, and to provide a bit more of a human lens on that. It was a lived experience for me. So I was a big fan still I'm a big fan of journaling. The challenge that I have or had while paper-based journaling was most of those thoughts that I wanted to capture weren't conveniently kind of there when I have my paper based journal kind of thing. So I wanted to be able to improve the accessibility for capturing your thoughts and that helps improve my self-awareness and I know the type of week that I've had. But also, as you quite rightly said, it means that my therapist can say Sean, good to see you, I know the type of week you've had. Did you want to pick up on either of these things? And obviously, as a person-centred therapist, they may want me to lead the conversation. So you know I may say well, actually I'd like to speak about this and that's great, but just having a therapist know that can help have more of effective conversations.

:: 03:22

Obviously, we spoke behind the scenes a bit on. We had a Zoom call and I got to know a bit about you and I was just like wowed by sort of the journey you've had. Could you turn everyone a bit about you know, dig into the past of why you started MindData and the journey you've had and the mental health issues that you've now been able to sort of take back control of and learn from and be able to help people out there who are struggling at this point in time.

:: 03:47

Yeah, thank you. It means the world, thank you it's been. You know, most people have mental health challenges, right, so I'm certainly not unique or special. But yeah, my experience started way back in 2015, where, after my middle brother lost his girlfriend, holly to a brain tumour, I kind of buried all of my emotions, tried to support my mum and brother kind of the strong silent, if you will and eventually that bubbled up as this truth most mental health things where you try to bury them, they'll come out in one way. It could be addiction, it could be, you know, self abuse, it could be so many different things. My flavour ended up becoming suicidal depression. So kind of my experience from that with Betty, my therapist, saving my life and changing my life. That's where I then said, hey, do you know what I need to make it my life's mission to pay this good work forward, if I can.

:: 04:35

Yeah.

:: 04:36

So that's where my mental health journey started, from suicidal depression in 2015.

:: 04:40

We talked about Betty on Zoom. You tell everyone a bit about her, and I know she's passed away.

She has, bless her and I love that you're sort of passing on the torch and you're taking that over from her and you've learned from her. But I think people like Betty are people that aren't appreciated as much as they should be in the world. They go under the radar and they help people every single day. And when you talked about her after we got off the call, I was a bit like I would have loved to have met someone like a Betty, you know, and I think it's such a privilege that you had that in your life and you're able to pay that forward and sort of be the Betty for everyone struggling out there. Now, can you tell us a bit about her and what she did for you?

:: 05:19

Yeah, thank you. So I think, firstly, you're right. Yeah, therapists generally they're really. They're kind of these silent supporting actors in the background. You know of all of our lives and I think that you know, shining a light on more therapists in the world is only going to be a better thing. But Betty was an amazing woman. She I think from memory she used to be in the US Air Force. I think she was from Arizona and she married a British guy. She moved over to England and I went to university and Buckingham, which is a tiny little university that most people probably haven't heard of, but that's where I was then introduced to student welfare. You know, it wasn't really directly to Betty initially, it was almost like a random selection right In health welfare and counsellors and happened to be very lucky that I was given access to Betty and so she had this amazing kind of, you know, arizona and accent and you know she was very cool, calm and collected and, you know, always had this kind of warm, empathetic smile.

And again, I know most counsellors would, but she was someone that we kept in touch after I finished uni and she, from my knowledge at least, she never had children, and you know, for multiple different reasons. Who knows choice, health, it doesn't really matter. But she used to always sign her emails off as love mom to me. So she always say my dear son, sean, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, love mom. And obviously this is where she was long after my counsellor in therapist. So kind of formed a slightly different relationship afterwards and we kept in touch and, as you said, eventually those emails just stopped and it turned out that she did pass away.

:: 06:49

It's a little things, isn't it? It's the little things you remember, like that end ear stuff, which I love.

Yeah, do you tell us a bit about your uni experience. Was your mental health problems I don't want to say problems, but the experiences you went through? Was that triggered end of school? Was that triggered through university or what was the time with that? And how did you, you know, at that time of your life, be able to cope with these pressures? Obviously, you had Betty helping you, but what else was it where you was? University struggle for you, because I've just finished and you know I struggled for a lot of it, but I was able to sort of take back control towards the end. And now I'm here and have this podcast. I'm doing what I'm doing and they've been great lessons and I think university teach you a lot about yourself. I love to know, like, what was your experience? Like? Would you go back and be thankful not thankful, but what you went through and what? What happened there for you?

:: 07:41

Yeah, I think, firstly not to diminish anybody's experience of depression and suicide or depression, but I actually now think that I was gifted depression and and again, that's really not to belittle it, but if you can go through any kind of traumatic experience like that and then use it for maybe your own growth, number one, but also if you have the ability to maybe pay that forward and help others even better. And so, my Weirdly, I'll come at this from a slightly different angle. Actually I actually found that I did better at university the studying side of it, I think, because I was depressed. That sounds really weird, but I'm quite a Tightly strong person that over thinks everything.

You know I'm very distracted very easily and actually I found that to some degree when I was suicidal and depressed, I was very numb to a lot of things. That kind of shut down a lot, a lot of my life and actually that enabled me to just coldly focus on a lot of my studies, weirdly. And now, granted, when it became acute, you know, you get these kind of periods obviously, like I did not concentrate, I was absent-minded, so there were these peaks and troughs, but generally I would say that my experience at university I was lucky that I was suicidal at uni because I had access to student welfare. God knows what that looked like had I been in apprenticeship job or something where I was like, well, you're on your own effectively, you've got a 12-week waiting list on the in the NHS or you pay with money that you don't have to go see a private therapist. I actually genuinely do not know what I would have done. So I was really lucky to be at university during that, I think as a net emotion.

:: 09:17

What's your view on? Obviously, university as a whole is is great and I loved it as it was an awesome experience, but I know a lot of people struggling with mental health problems are struggling a lot at uni in terms of loneliness, being away from family, being away from a support network. How far were you away from home? Because this is something I was Incredibly blessed with is I was about 20 minutes from home and the times I was struggling, I was able to be like mum, dad, I'm not in a good headspace, can I come home for a bit? And they're like yeah, of course, and that was my sort of out, but I know a lot of my friends and a lot of people that mess with me on DM. They don't have that chance. They're three, four hours away from home and they have to. Just they're away from their support network.

What was that like for you? Were you, were you close to home at that point? Or were you sort of struggling a bit in Silence? And obviously you have keep going on about the, the counseling, the therapy that's perfect. But that support network for you, were you able to have that home?

:: 10:17

So not really at home actually. So for multiple different reasons, you know. So for the backdrop, my my parents divorced when I was, when I was a teenager, and so my dad moved a long way away. He was down in our Tumbridge Wells in Kent and you know it's quite a long way when you're up near Cambridge or all bucking where I'm studying, and we weren't really that close at that time. We've actually rebuilt a lot of our relationship now as two kind of men and adults, which is great, but it was never really that close to dad.

So it wasn't that open with me, probably didn't really know what I was going through. My mum had become like remarried and you know, for one one reason or another, I wasn't. It wasn't really an option for me to go home. Actually, even though university recommended I go home, I didn't. So I actually ended up going to my brother's, girlfriend's mum's house. She actually helped me because I was the only kind of point of refuge that I really had at that point. I had Some really good friends at uni.

Jordan and Matt were my two closest friends there and they were really supportive. But I would say on the whole that I wasn't actually a very open person during that time. So people can only help what they know. You know what they know about you effectively. So I.

There were people that were in my life that were there to support me, but I don't think that I set myself or them up for success. I wasn't. I know I didn't really understand what I was going through. I wasn't, I wasn't open with them and God, if I look back, I wish I had. You know, I was at the time my first half of uni. I also had a at the time of long-term girlfriend as well and you know, god knows I did not open up to her as much as I should have done. There was a whole, a whole mess of a world that I was in. So I know that the support was there, but I didn't make the most of the support, so it kind of felt like it wasn't there, even though it absolutely was in terms of being open about your problems and talking about them, therapy, etc.

:: 12:10

Do you think that's something that's come with age and maturity or because I went through a good three years of I'm really bottling it up, really struggling and being like I really want to tell someone, I don't want to burden anyone with my problems, and when I did start talking around which is really young, still, is 18, 19, I did start talking. I was like I saw a therapist.

I was like okay, this is getting a bit easier every time and that three years. I don't regret not speaking about it, but it comes to a point where I was like I really wish I did earlier and I would have been able to take back control. What's your view on sort of like opening up about things for the people that are struggling out there to have the confidence to go and be like I've got a problem? Is that something that comes with maturity or have you just got to take that step, no matter what age you are?

:: 13:02

I actually think that there is a balance of maturity, but you're a really good example of you don't need to age-wise be mature to have that realization and open up. So I think it comes down to like emotional maturity. You could be an emotionally intelligent 12 year old that was raised in a way that you could open up or you only do it in your 70s. For me it was very much like Betty helped me open up because she was the first person to not ask how I was feeling, but why I was feeling it, and at the time that blew my mind I was like no one's ever asked me why are you feeling a certain way? So I think there is a degree of maturity through life experiences that help.

But I think there is a big issue that I have and I can relate to you a lot of this and I think it is more closely linked to us being men, where we are raised, intentionally or unintentionally, to be strong and silent. You don't wanna be a burden. You're here, there's the provider. Effectively, whatever it is, boys don't cry, and so I was never raised in a way to be able to say, hey, I can just cry and open up.

There was a big amount of guilt that I carry to be like I can't put this on my brother, I can't put this on my girlfriend, and my advice now to my younger self or anybody else is it's actually the inverse People that love and care about you. They want to be there to support you. They all do, and we know that's true because we would wanna support loved ones, so kind of flip that on its head. You're almost denying that loved one an opportunity to help you by not opening up. So it's easier said than done to open up. But that's the number one thing I wish I had done. I was older than you, I was like 24 at uni, so I wish that someone had just taught me that life lesson to say please open up. They want, whoever they are, they want to be there to support you.

:: 14:48

Yeah, I love that. In terms of what you're doing now I'm really interested in as a CEO and founder, that's a stressful job, incredibly stressful job, and I have a lot of respect for you for doing that In terms of stress and like looking after your mental wellbeing at this current point. Is there anything in particular you'd highlight which is working for you? Or is it just been more therapy and you know, being open about your problems, it's definitely the most stressful thing that I've ever done, absolutely.

:: 15:19

I think it's more stressful in many ways than I had ever anticipated it being. I mean even now, just this morning, before coming here. You know I'm waking up at 4am most mornings with different types of stresses Because being a founder it's the first type of role that I've ever had where there is no line between job and your personal life. You know the decisions you make financially to invest into a company, to give up your income, whatever it is. They're knocking your door all the time. Whether it's I can't remortgage my house because you know they're saying you don't have an income whether it's your credit score dropping, you know blah, blah, blah, your life savings being depleted.

It's very visceral and very real, and so my advice first of all and I know you didn't ask this, but my first advice to anybody thinking about setting up a company is, because it's going to be like omnipresent in your life, in every little nook and cranny make sure you're doing a business that you're at least passionate about, because it's illogical.

It doesn't actually make sense to like jack in your job and risk quite a lot of your life to start something. So at least make it meaningful that you do push through, but definitely, I guess, a degree of emotional intelligence, being more aware of these stresses, opening up to my fiance now, whether it's my therapist, my investors, just being as open as possible on this journey, that this isn't like the Mark Zuckerberg social network you know billion dollar companies. It's hard work and most people that are in your network will probably get that. It's just hard work. There's a lot of sacrifice that comes with this and I think my stresses definitely peak when I try to restrain them. You know I try to put a bit of veneer on it and that's where so just kind of opening up is really, really important. Yeah.

:: 17:04

I'd say you said about sort of like a work life, personal life. You don't really get the separation and I kind of see that in what I'm doing is 24, seven, really seven days a week. I'm getting meshes on the Saturday even being like can you help me Complete, for I love to.

:: 17:22

Cool yeah.

:: 17:23

But separating that personal life and business life is hard. What advice would you give you? Know, I'd love advice personally, but what advice would you give to me who's sort of starting out? You've gone through all the laying the foundations and all that hard stuff. Now you're on your way and you're going. What advice would you give to me that's at that starting block, ready to get going?

:: 17:46

I would say and this is all easier said than done take this advice with, however, because I don't want to be hypocritical, because I know that I don't live by this all the time. I think being deliberate is really, really important Conscious and deliberate actions. So when you're switching off, deliberately, consciously switch off. So one of my big things, I still do it. Now I might be switched off watching Netflix To the outside world, you know recharging and I'm not, because I know my mind wanders. So, trying to really pull yourself back and be present in those moments, whether it's walking your dog, whether it's having a few drinks with your friends, be present and really try to recognize that this is a moment where I'm consciously not thinking about work, and this is good for me. The other thing is this idea of false economy. I think in there's a lot of hustle, grind culture that's glamorized. Yeah, I'm not that big on stuff.

:: 18:41

I don't think life works like that in my opinion, and you know, if it works for others and it gives them motivation, I love it. Like I want everyone to succeed, I don't want anyone to fail. Everyone deserves to have a good life and do something that they love to. But, like you said, this hustle culture for me.

It's just like it doesn't work for me. I'm picturing the long term, the step by step, the 1% better every day. I'm not picturing that big jump. Just made loads of money, let's go post fast. That's just not my personality. I'm sure that's not yours either. Yeah, I'd love to. Sorry to interrupt on that point, but I'd love to hear your view on that. I have a feeling it'll be quite similar to mine.

:: 19:23

Yeah you're right. I absolutely agree with you. I think that's really important. I think what we need to try to do is let go of the grind culture of like, hey, if you're not grinding like 24 hours, if you're not up at 4 am, you're not a real entrepreneur or a real founder, and I think that I think, to some degree, there is some truth to that. Maybe it's not an ethos that I live by. There are times where you need to be up and doing longer hours or whatever, but if you're in the like you said, the long run of this, there's only certain amount of years, months, quarters that you can do that. At what point are you making the trade-off of your personal relationships, your health? Even and I think it's also not spoken enough about say, hey, I do 18-hour days, but how efficient are you for those 18-hour days? Are you really on it for those 18 hours or does it just sound good Cause you're like, hey, I'm grinding, you know entrepreneur, and I'm hustling.

My old company, clear Review, this HR technology company, stuart Hearn, was the CEO before we exited and he's now an investor and my personal mentor and someone that I really do look up to on a personal and professional life and he made a decision very early in Clear Review's trajectory of having how did what? Did he call it Responsible growth? It was something like that. Maybe that's not what, but just responsible growth. You know we can go down this idea of raising millions of VC funding and have this hockey stick exponential growth. But you know he had adoptive children. You know a lot of people in the company had families and we made that decision quite early to say we're gonna grow this, but ethically. We're gonna grow this sensibly, so that we don't make these trade-offs.

Because you know, if we do make a success, whatever that means of the company on a personal, selfish level, do you wanna be, you know, in your Ferrari? Let's say, let's just say that's the goal, right, you're self-amilling, you're in your Ferrari, but your marriage is down the pan. You haven't seen your friends in. You know, two years On paper with a laser focus, you've done a great job of the business, great, but I don't think that makes a successful life. And so trying to keep that holistic balance, spinning all these plates, I think is really important. I'd never wanna sacrifice my health in the long term for the company. It just doesn't make sense, for example. So yeah, I'm very passionate about that of ethical growth if you will.

:: 21:44

Yeah, I love that. So obviously we were talking about mentors and your personal mentors, Stuart Hearn. Can you tell us about the importance of having mentors as a CEO and sort of putting your ego aside and being able to learn from someone and have that guy who's or girl who's made those mistakes and you can be like, oh, let's not do that, let's not lose money here, let's go this direction. What's, what's he been like for you?

:: 22:12

So Stuart actually became my mentor before I was a CEO founder and so I was one of the first people to join Clearview, this company that he set up. So I was kind of person number three or four within within the company and and from day one he was my mentor. You know, teaching me lots of things.

you know about business, just just as a manager at the time really, but he's an excellent manager slash mentor and I think the good managers and leaders probably blur the lines. They are coaches, you know, and mentors, so that's actually. It was kind of a gray style, it wasn't like a right will you be my mentor? It started way back then, really, um, but I think it's really important because you, you can't know everything, uh. And yes, there are some founders out there that are probably more ego driven to, to presume they probably do and it can be hard to ask for help and to say I don't know this.

You know, there's a fine balance of being a founder in a room of investors or customers and wanting to try to appear like you know all of the answers because you want to be prepared, but everyone knows that's not true. So the importance for me is is having someone that says hey, by the way, you're, you're going to discover this in year two, do this in year one, so you don't get to that point, for example. You know they are kind of your lens into the future, um, and so that is so important for me. Just have that someone say yeah, you're on the right path, keep doing that, make sure you do that you. You know you don't want to drop the ball on on this. You know, get that US insurance before you talk to that, whatever it is. I'm like I've never thought to do that, and so the the close.

:: 23:40

Thing.

:: 23:41

I say is that they're kind of your lens into the future and if you can just hold on to them, if they've been down this journey once twice, take that advice, you know, and really kind of um to follow them, so that you don't fall into the same traps and mistakes that they've made and you will still. Still make mistakes, right, and those mistakes.

:: 23:57

Yeah, exactly.

:: 23:59

And if I'm ever lucky enough to be someone's mentor in the future, I'll be able to share those mistakes. And so the domino effect goes on.

:: 24:06

What was clear review like and what it was a HR type business, wasn't it? Yeah, did you learn a lot of stuff that you've been able to bring over to mine data now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

:: 24:16

Definitely yeah.

:: 24:18

What type of things would you say working for a business? Working for a business before becoming an entrepreneur has helped you with.

:: 24:25

So many things. So if this answer goes on too long, just cut me off, okay, please. Um. So I think that the first one is it was really helpful to be, like I said, person number was the first full time employee actually at clear review, full time outside of the founders. Um, and you're kind of an entrepreneur, as they say. You've got many hats and so you quickly need to be quite diverse in the things that you need to turn your your hand to. Um. So that was the first lesson that I I learned is that you're not just pigeonholed into something. You, you better kind of turn your hand to a bit of marketing. You know, you get on that networking stand and you know, look after customers in this certain way, help, you know, eddie the lead developer, create user stories. So there were so many things that I was very grateful to be that early on in a technology company.

That was number one, um. Number two was being part of you're forming the culture around a company. The culture will, as they say I'm going to use this rubbish term that everyone uses right, but it's very true Culture will eat strategy for breakfast, and that's so true. You can put any process you like, but if you bring in ego driven people, arrogant, you know whatever it is, they'll step on people that will really destroy the company or eat itself from the ground up effectively. So forming the healthy culture and being able to use that shared set of values to hire the right people so so important. You can train skills. You can't train people not to be an idiot, shall we say. Um, so that's the the second thing. The third thing was how to develop a technology, this idea around creating a minimum viable product. Um, lean principles of kind of constant iteration and feedback, really, really important. So I pause next, like you keep going on.

:: 26:13

Yeah, they're the three main things that I'd taken from those early days.

So from that now obviously you have mine data, foundancy of mine data what type of thing will you know we were talking about before sorry about the ethics of mine data and how you're doing things ethically and also with the top technology side of things. Can you, can you go a bit deeper into that in terms of the ethics you guys are doing? And you know it's not like a get rich quick thing, it's we're building this up very, very gradually. We're doing this the right way and over time, we're going to help a million people.

I'd love for you to just dig in a bit more about that, because you're actually the first person come on and I'm really be like we're playing the long game here and we're going to do this right, and I find that really interesting because that's you know, that's something I want to do with my business one day is I don't want that quick. You know there's a cash cool done. I want it to be like this is a legacy type thing. I'm building this up. This is my baby in a way, and I'm going to help as many people along the way. Can you talk about the ethics behind mine data and the way you guys are doing that? Yeah, of course.

:: 27:18

So so, firstly, I think the idea of you know kind of raise loads of VC funding, scale your company at hockey stick growth, just get the revenues, don't worry about profitability or anything like that, we're just going to have multiples of your revenue as a valuation. Those days after pandemic have gone. Now it's all about profitability and sustainability. And one of my investors, anthony, he, you know, he came to me a month or so ago and said you need to get to a default, a life position. So this idea of saying, if you don't raise further funding, can your business sustain itself? That's quite alien, you know, five years ago, to high growth technology companies yeah, just keep funding this thing, make a loss, because all the money is going back into our economy. He's going back into R&D and growth, growth, growth, all costs, effectively and paraphrasing. I know that that's not strictly true for every company, but that was part of the startup ethos. Now it's shifted on its head. It is about, you know, sustainability, profitability, sensible growth within reason, and so that's a big part of my foundation for this company. I don't want to, you know, just bloat this thing out with massive amounts of millions of funding at all costs. That's number one. That's really important. Number two my first hire, if you will, at Mind Data was Jan Zambrini, and he's the director of information ethics, and so it was really important that the way we literally built Mind Data, with the way we handle data, the way we handle privacy, you can meet the legal requirements here, but sometimes that's not always the ethical way. So an example would be well, we've legally built into our privacy notice that we can anonymize your data and sell it to Google. It's not illegal. If you agree to it, we can do that, but it's not the ethical way of handling it. For example, there's a, there's a delta there, so we we overshot the legal requirements and aim for an ethical compliance. How do we ethically handle it? So Jan came on to help us build the architecture of how admin privileges, for example, end-to-end encryption, the, the, the way you transit the data. So, all of that being said, that's just a really important ethos of where we can. We should Always go above the minimum legal requirement and handle our Customers, our employees, our data, our users ethically really, really important. And the other thing is it's not quite the ethical thing, but I'll tag this on about this growth side of things.

One quite common question that I get asked on LinkedIn is where typically quite a punchy mentor Exited a few times those kinds of personalities. They might come on and say, hey, Sean, great to be connected. Only a million people, you know. You know, they're obviously like, they've great personality. I was cuz, they're these drivers, right, they're these people of like, shoot for the moon, you know millions. Nothing nowadays. Probably a good argument to say that it's not, you know. In this day of billions and hundreds of millions, it's literally a little entrepreneur like me is only a million.

:: 30:19

But, I.

:: 30:20

I do think that that kind of feeds into studio let's also be realistic as well as punishable degree a million is a lot of people. Yeah, you know we can look at billions of users on Facebook and Instagram, but let's be real. A million people impacted is insane. If we can ever get to that, we've done a great job, and then we'll move it to 10 million if we need to 100 million. But, always keeping sensible about the way you're growing is really important to me.

:: 30:48

Yeah, love that. Another thing I wanted to ask was in terms of mental health site, mental health type apps and sites. There's quite a lot of AI stuff coming through which I Don't really agree with, and I know you don't agree with. What makes mind data Different to all these other things you said about the privacy you know going above and beyond sensible growth. I loved here what else you guys are doing which separates you, because I see a huge difference. But that's because I really really looked into the background of your company and I've been up get behind it. I love it. I love the idea from your point of view. You compare these other apps, which is all AI led type things. What makes mind data stand out and what makes it different?

:: 31:31

Well, I think, I think the number one thing is when you start a company, whatever it is, you kind of create these Subconscious pillars that you build your company on. One of these pillars is we will never replace the human to human connection. Our sole job is to use technology in the right ethical way to magnify and amplify the human connection. Really, really important. Because when I first was thinking about creating mind data, I looked into creating a chatbot. You know, therapist in your pocket kind of thing, and with my lived experiences I quickly thought I would never have made the progress with a chatbot that I would have made with Betty, you know, and I think they have their places, I'm not diminishing that. You know people who need, you know, immediate help and they can't. They provide massive value, just not the way that I would want to build mind data.

So the number one thing, that is that our technology always facilitates, like human to human connection. And number two is I think the most effective technology is the thinnest. I call it thin technology. If you can almost have this invisible thin, it doesn't really get in the way of this, it just kind of facilitates with insight and data. Really really, you know, important for the way we build that the thing, and we'll come on to maybe the future of mind data in a minute, but we will be using AI Interestingly, so I'm certainly not like an anti AI person, but again, do you just throw the equivalent of chat GPT at this thing?

:: 33:01

Probably not. That's not the way we'd want to do it, but yeah, that's, that's our ethos. Obviously, you just touched on it. Then what are your long-term goals going forward for mind data and as a businessman as a whole, is there anything else that's interesting you that you could sort of add on, or you've seen it, you've been like, really interesting slightly different, or is it all tunnel vision for mind data right now?

:: 33:23

I think it's. It's probably weirdly. I'd say it's like a tunnel vision on being open-minded, which is a rubbish answer, but it's you never know what's going to happen the next 18 months. If I think back at three years ago, what's? What's Alexa, for example? What's chat, gpt? These things have changed our, certainly changed my life. I use these things every day. So I don't know what technology will do in two years and I'm quite excited about being able to leverage this to amplify human support. But my, my vision is we've already building our AI dashboards to help create better AI driven insights to help the professional or the person going through support and Get to these aha moments quicker. These did you know? Moments you know, and technology is in the right way. You can Speed and that Quicken that process up.

So I think that's that's number one. That's what we'll be doing more of in the future, that we're already building. Number two is integration. I think that the more you can make Access to mind data in our world Holistic, the better. So, whether it's integration with WhatsApp, is it integration with you know within social media feeds, you know by partnering with meta, for example so I'm talking very lofty here, as you could imagine, but, you know, can you give yourself a quick check in midway through your, your your news feed, for example.

You know, just to make you more aware, yeah, there are ways of being able to improve accessibility of journaling to people that might not be able to write, so can you integrate it with voice, so you can check in with Alexa, for example. You know loads of different ways of just Getting this kind of big data lake that we carry around with ourselves and funneling that in to a centralized place that enables my therapist to pick and choose different elements. To say that's interesting, every time Tom exercises, we see that actually, two days later, his mental health increases, for example. It's interesting when he's in this place. So you know, there's a lot of different ways that we can continue to leverage technology.

The ultimate goal is to actually be acquired. My, my goal would be to be acquired by Google or Headspace Health, for example, not just because, oh, it's this great idea of selling for millions We'll come on to that in a minute but I think it's being able to take, you know, take mind data to a certain point and then put it in the hands of someone with enormous resources and technological capabilities and Amplifying that up to a billion people, for example, and that I'd love to stay on and be part of that, to be head of product or whatever at mind data, just to be able to put in this behemoth hands, to be able to say you guys can run with this like I could never and less impact so many more lives in ways that I could never have done on my own. So the ultimate goal is to get this to a point of being being acquired definitely.

:: 36:14

Yeah, that's amazing, that's amazing. I love that.

:: 36:16

Thank you.

:: 36:17

I had a few. I did a little poll on Instagram and I wanted to touch on this and I Promised everyone I get them in. I post a photo of your article and we just spoke about this before you had a article Written about you. What was, what's the site? Was it business, business chief, business chief? Yeah, and I read it the other day and I just like, obviously we've met each other for the first first time properly now we were cool and soon, but I read it and I was like go on shore, like this is this is what you want to see and you know I love when people do. Well, what was that like for you having that article written about you? And then after that I'll read a few questions that people have wanted me to ask.

:: 36:54

Oh, cool it's. People have asked questions. Yeah, I did a little poll my story.

:: 36:58

Yeah, a few, a lot of like young entrepreneurs being like I'll touch on that after, but it's a lot of stuff about investment, okay, and what that's like cool as well. Yeah but yeah, well, what was that article like for you in terms like confidence boost, in terms of looking back at what you've gone through, being like you know I'm doing it, I'm here, I'm succeeding and what I'm doing?

:: 37:22

It's definitely an out-of-body experience. It felt like to me being on the cover of Forbes and I know that's ridiculous. There'll be people listening to this that probably have been on the cover of Forbes and maybe one day I'll look back and be like, oh sure, and you thought you've made it or whatever, and I don't think I've made it by by any stretch, but it was a real highlight. I said to you like during during our break, like I think that if my Suicidal 25 year-old self had seen this article, it would have made my year. I, you know, could not have believed that that's me. You know the CEO is, firstly, I'm not see, I'm just sure you know. So it was a real, uplifting, amazing moment, being very vulnerable and real with you.

My biggest challenge that I have is enormous imposter syndrome and I have an amazing ability. If I could be paid for this skill I'd be a millionaire. But this ability of riding a high and then quickly saying put that away, you're nothing, you know, you're not really that successful, get back to it. People are going to be judging you. You know there's this fear of people thinking that I have an ego or I'm arrogant. So I always find it hard to celebrate too much. I Internally do. I feel over the moon like a child, but then I'm quickly like right, carry on, move on. People might think you've up yourself and I have a horrible fear of of doing that. So it's this real kind of roller coaster. But that article that you know and shout out to, to Tom for writing that, like I Made my, made my year.

:: 38:54

Yeah, yeah, in terms of questions I was up. There were two questions. I'm quite a lot of them around the same topic at about eight people asked question, but two really stood out to me and one I'll start on this. One was how, how old are you now?

:: 39:09

33.

:: 39:09

Yeah, and it was at the age you are, now, so 33? What advice would you give to yourself Looking back on the problems you went through at university and around 24 25, when you were suicidal? What advice would you give to yourself in what you know now? No?

:: 39:28

Number one is recognizing that you're not a burden. I know we said that earlier. Really important, my god, that you are not a burden, sean. Just open up to your girlfriend at the time, your brothers, your friends, that you just open up and be vulnerable. There's no shame in that. It might be uncomfortable, granted, not saying it's easy, but at least go with that without the feeling of guilt. You're not gonna be just open up. So that's the number one thing open up and be very transparent and if you can go to therapy, sean, you know, go to therapy before you need it.

:: 40:01

He's great the best thing I've ever done, and would you agree?

:: 40:04

Yeah, same it is honestly I think that bit like working out going to the gym. You don't need to be injured or overweight or anything like that to go to the gym, you just do it for maintenance, because it's great, you keep on top of things. Same with therapy. It's like this kind of mental exercise, if you will. Mental maintenance.

:: 40:20

I've heard it called before so, yeah, mental maintenance, yeah, you just keep on top of things.

:: 40:25

You don't need to be depressed to go to therapy, yeah the best thing ever.

:: 40:29

So that's probably where I felt short. Was sorry to interrupt.

:: 40:32

No please.

:: 40:32

I when, when I felt bad, but when I felt good, I was like I don't need it again when it's actually not the case because you're gonna drop off again. It's just like you said. They said way better than I could mental maintenance, keeping it at that level. We don't have these huge drop-offs now with something I learned, so I'd love to hear about that as well.

:: 40:50

I totally agree with you, absolutely, because when we're riding high, you genuinely feel like you don't need it. But I think that's the problem, not not with you, with me, if with everybody with life, there is this feeling of Needing to go to therapy. If you say to the average person I'm in therapy, their first reaction would be my god, what's wrong? Are you okay? And it should just not be that. You know, if I said someone I'm getting a personal trainer, I'm going to the gym, no one would say my god, are you sick? They're good for you and I would love it if we could change society's blood. I'm going to therapy like awesome, I'm good for you. Yeah, that's great. You know, not feel judged in the way.

Exactly because it shouldn't be a judgmental thing, and and it's only a judgmental thing because most people like me, like you at the time, go to therapy when you're one or a zero out of ten. We should be going when we go from a nine to an eight. And so I'd say that, you know, going to therapy really, really important, and checking in with yourself and just we have the answers within our own minds. You know, betty never gave me answers per se, she was just that catalyst to ask me the right question and say what do you think to that? And we all know, really, what we need to do to be better.

We may ignore it, but we can. We are a best therapist. And so taking time to sit on your bed, meditate, journal and just ask yourself the questions that we all know we're not asking, you know ourselves, we bury those. If, what can you do to that you should be doing to improve your, your relationship, your marriage? You know that you should probably be doing this to improve your business, right, that thing that you're ignoring we all know in the back of our minds and just kind of bringing those to the line and having the hard conversation with myself, really, really important.

:: 42:28

Yeah, so they'll be the three things I would say to to shore that 24, 25 yeah, and secondly and this is a question I wanted to ask anyway, so thank you so much. I said I keep the questions anonymous, but you know who you are. You're listening to this question, so thank you. In terms of investors, what? What was that like as an entrepreneur, who, who had this idea of mind data going to investors, being vulnerable in a way, being like this is my story and pitching to them and getting their investment? What is that like? That's something I've never done and it's something I will do one day, and I'm incredibly nervous for like that as a daunting experience, to go and stand in front of people and be like this is my story and this is my company. I'd love for you to invest. What was that like for you in, in sort of telling these people your story and pitching it to them?

:: 43:17

yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is it is very exposing in so many different ways. You're exposing your story, your background, your ideas and you're inviting people to understandably critique it. And it's so hard, and especially as I can't speak for me, but as someone that can be very sensitive to how, what people think of me I definitely people, please are growing up like that's, that's a big thing and I'm worried about people not liking me and things like that. I get nervous around like negative feedback. It's a bad thing when someone says can I be honest?

my heart sings oh no, what have I done? You know it's very rarely can I be honest you're the best person I've ever met.

:: 43:59

It's very rarely that they say that right, usually can I be honest.

:: 44:02

You're not, you're not doing this. So and recognizing that is it is nerve-wracking, but that's universal. You know, I think I challenge anybody, especially if they're first-time founder and they said, yeah, I went through fundraising and it was, it was easy. You're lying, you're absolutely lying. You may not want to admit it, but of course, it's scary and just embracing the fact that that can be. It is really important. But I think the the other side of it is just to recognize that actually, these people, you're not going to get a hundred yeses. In fact, the exception is going to be a yes.

Most people will say no and I would say, if you are raising money, and no from an investor can be for so many reasons other than not believing in you personally. Now, granted, they may well be. There will definitely be people that heard my story, looked at me and was like there's no way I'm back in this guy a hundred percent. You know I'm not Elon Musk and but there'd be so many reasons. Maybe they, you know, maybe they're like I, just not into mental health, that I'm into FinTech. This isn't for me, or I'd rather invest in a company. It's generating revenue, come back in a year, whatever it is, or just found out that my wife being made redundant, so actually the amount of liquid cash I've got I'm gonna have to hold back.

Sorry, so many reasons for a no and and not taking it personally, that's. And that took me a long time because, my god, I reached out to people that I used to work with great relationships and you know they'd come back and say it's a no car, we're not friends anymore, do you know? I mean, you're believing me and that's just not true. So, recognizing that you will hear no's far more than yeses, and that's okay, it's not a reflection of you. So I would say that that would be my initial advice. There's lots more we can talk about, but those two main things that I took from my funding journey.

:: 45:49

That's awesome. I think I'm gonna wrap this up here so I'm wary of time. Yeah, if people want to get in contact with you after watching this podcast, what social media is you on? Promote yourself? I love people to message you and let them know the thoughts on the podcast and yeah. I get a lot of positive feedback which I try to send over to great, but I love for people to get in contact with Sean on Instagram or whatever. What whereabouts can people find you?

:: 46:15

so I'm on LinkedIn, sean Rewain. That that's a place that I share a lot of my story quite open on on the founders journey and the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. So, if that's your thing, linked in on Instagram, yeah, I never get this right. It's a Sean Rewain underscore.

I think yeah, I thought yeah, annoying about the underscore, but that's. That's the Instagram side of things, or my email. Feel free to reach out at Sean at minddataio. Sean at minddataio. So my inbox is always open. So if anybody ever wants to ask more questions about entrepreneurship, fundraising or mental health or anything in between and I'm absolutely open so there'd be the main reason.

:: 47:07

Thank you so much.