Overcoming CEO Disease and Embracing Self-Awareness with Victoria Mensch

Victoria Mensch, the visionary founder of the Silicon Valley Executive Academy, joins us to unravel the complex layers behind burnout and stress, sharing her compelling journey from psychology to the tech world. Victoria's story is a testament to the transformative power of recognizing burnout not merely as an external challenge but as a reflection of internal mindsets. By shifting how we perceive and manage stress, she offers a roadmap to reclaiming control over our lives and careers. Tune in as we explore practical stress management strategies, including the powerful technique of box breathing, and discover how these tools can lead to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Our conversation takes a deep dive into the world of leadership, exploring the often-overlooked impact of fear-driven management styles. From the isolating pressures of CEO disease and founder syndrome to the ongoing debates about remote work, we uncover the unseen forces shaping workplace dynamics. Victoria sheds light on the insidious nature of fear in leadership and emphasizes the critical role self-awareness plays in cultivating an effective and harmonious work environment. This episode is packed with insights on how leaders can recognize and combat the early signs of burnout, ensuring both personal well-being and organizational health thrive.

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Preventing Burnout With Stress Management
• 12:02 Leadership and Stress Management Strategies
• 19:36 Leading With Control and Fear

Transcript

Nico: 0:00

When you're in a stress situation, you don't have a lot of stuff around you that can trigger anything. It's just what your mind and your body does at that point. So those are very nice first aid kit tools that you're supplying us with. Thank you very much for that. Now you've experienced burnout yourself. What did you hate most of? Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within In a few seconds. You just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life.

Nico: 0:54

And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, victoria Mensch, founder of Silicon Valley Executive Academy. Her mission is to inspire high-achieving leaders and teams to prevent burnout and create the life they love. Victoria, all the way from close by Portugal, welcome to the show. Tell us who you are and what your magic is.

Victoria: 1:32

Thank you very much, nico. I'm very happy to be here. I'm glad to have this conversation. So, as you said, I'm currently in Portugal, but my home base is actually California, silicon Valley. That's where I'm hailing from, silicon Valley, and I have a little bit more than 25 years of experience as a high-tech executive. I worked in large global corporations and startups in boutique consulting companies. I founded my own consulting company as well, but originally I started my career as a psychologist, so I do have a PhD in psychology and then somewhere very early on I pivoted into high tech. So I have this experience from all different sides of life and I definitely have experience with the burnout on many different levels. So at this point it's really a passion project of mine to share my experience to prevent burnout with a burnout-proof leadership strategist that's how we call it so that we have a happier, more harmonic you know, more harmony in our lives.

Nico: 2:38

Well, that's very nice, absolutely, and I think, targeting on high achievers, you're probably in the ballpark of a lot of people that end up in burnout, not even knowing that they're actually running straight into it because of their ambition and things they want to do. What triggered you to learn psychology? Except for your own burnout, of course, it might be part of it, but what triggered you to go to psychology?

Victoria: 3:07

Well, when I was in high school, they told us to look for our passion and follow our passion. So this is what I did. Straight out of high school, I decided that I'm passionate about psychology. I went and got my bachelor in psychology, my master in psychology, my PhD in psychology, and then I started counseling people and very quickly, very quickly, figured out that I made a mistake. I cannot take one more day of this. So I followed my passion and it didn't lead me to the life of fulfillment. So now I know that it was a burnout, but at that time I thought well, I made a mistake, I need to switch my career so that I become more productive and more effective and more happy. And I switched to a corporate career in product marketing. So I looked at what it is that, what are those transferable skills that I have from psychology? I decided that it was marketing.

Victoria: 4:02

And, lo and behold, three years later, three, four years later, I'm in the same situation. I made another mistake. I did all this bigger year switch and you know, completely 180 degree turnaround and maybe it's a different industry. So I need to try a different industry. So maybe a little bit more human industry, not semiconductors, but maybe you know software industry, not semiconductors but maybe you know software Silicon Valley, everything is around that right, and and I tried that and then found myself, you know, in a similar situation again and that actually led me to look at the situation a little bit closer. It's like what is it that puts me in this position? And now I know, through work with my clients and through myself, that a lot of it is really not about external circumstances. It's about our mindset, our internal circumstances, and we have much more power and much more control over how we experience this and how we build our careers and how we build our lives and the choices that we make.

Nico: 5:07

It's something that's been coming back on the podcast in several interviews Indeed that it's not from the outside that the triggers are actually ending up with the person. It's from within that it actually gets triggered on. So that's what I want to ask you if you look at a high achiever, what's the one thing that they really have that triggers the point where they might head for that burnout or any other form of blockage?

Victoria: 5:37

Well, it's interesting because burnout is definitely not limited to high achievers. So now we know again, it's so prevalent and there's a lot of awareness about burnout and how we experience it. A lot of experience is really about exhaustion. I feel exhausted, I feel tired and I cannot, you know, get better. No matter how much sleep I get, no matter how many vacation days I take, I do not feel better and it is a chronic stress reaction. People in high achieving roles obviously are subjected to many more stress factors. So that's a big factor. But I want to say that is very personal, it's very individualized, want to say that is very personal, it's very individualized.

Victoria: 6:30

I remember that's a really nice story that kind of led me to reconsider the whole burnout and stress reaction. So I remember I was juggling family and work and we were in that middle of a very big launch of a multi-billion dollar product for the company. The company was really betting its future on that. So it was a lot of stress, a lot of different pressures, and not only at work but also at home. And I was driving to pick up my son who was I don't know five years old and he was in the carpeting class for a five-year-old. So I come there and I look look at the teacher, the carpenter who's teaching these kids, and I'm thinking, oh, I want life like that, right.

Victoria: 7:12

So it's a very like he. He follows his passion. You know he's working with kids, he is happy, it's low stress, uh, so maybe I can do that, maybe I could quit that. You know, um a high-powered, you know career and lunch and I can enjoy. You know high powered, you know career and launch, and I can enjoy. You know peaceful Syrian environment. And I come there and I say hi to this carpenter, a teacher, and, just as a small talk, I'm sitting. How are you doing? I am so stressed.

Nico: 7:44

Okay.

Victoria: 7:45

I am so stressed, I'm so overwhelmed. There's so much pressure at work, at home and all these kids, and that's when I realized it's really not about where you are in your career. Yes, people in high achieving roles, they have much higher tolerance to stress. So those, those stress factors from outside are much more um obvious. But on each and every level we can experience that as well. It is a chronic stress reaction For high achievers. You know those are bigger stakes but they also have high tolerance so they can persevere much longer without getting help or without noticing the symptoms. But it's not really confined just within the high achieving realm.

Nico: 8:30

Yeah, yeah, true, true, absolutely. One of the things that I've recently was reading about research about how people lived more than 150 years ago, so pre-industrial age, where it came to a point where they were looking at the people's time schedules and they actually lived with seasons a lot more. So, you know, when you sow and then you reap the time between those two seasons, you had to have your you know, your corn or whatever grow, and in those times people didn't actually do a lot, they didn't work when in our time and our Western civilization or the most people that I talk to you know our Western civilization we work the whole time. Is that something that you also noticed in your practices? That people, just you know, because of their continuous working, it is a repetitive thing.

Victoria: 9:27

There is no stop now, right so? And there are more disruptions, for sure, and we know that these disruptions are going to continue to come. So disruptions come in all different forms. It could be technological disruptions, it could be political disruptions, it could be climate disruptions, it could be anything. It could be relationship disruptions. There are disruptions everywhere. It's not going to stop, it's not going to end. So it's really up to us to adjust to those.

Victoria: 9:55

So I mentioned chronic stress reaction. So whether you're in burnout or you're not in burnout, it doesn't really matter. It's important for all of us in the modern day and age to master stress management techniques, some basic tools that each of us would have and it really comes from, you know managing that stress reaction that we have right now. A lot of it is really unconscious, right? So we just let our survival mechanisms go wild and we don't really have the language to talk to them. Mechanisms go wild and we don't really have a language to talk to them.

Victoria: 10:31

So our fight or flight response unfortunately does not understand verbal commands. It's really pre-verbal reaction. So it understands the language of movement, it understands the language of symbols, it understands the language of breath. So those are stress management techniques that we want to master, to be able to switch from fight or flight response to rest and digest response, and that's what's going to give you more energy, it's going to give you clear head, it's going to give you more vitality, more health and the place from which you can make much better decisions.

Nico: 11:07

So you're talking about breath. You mentioned breath. Can you give me an example on how somebody you know who's listening right now, who knows that they're you know at their peak of their stress moment Because these days, you know, the last quarter of a year, everybody's chasing for new years, you know those final figures ending up. I'm trying to stress out the people listening to the podcast.

Victoria: 11:28

Right.

Nico: 11:29

Then you can just tell them the solution to their problem. What would you recommend? Somebody who is at the point where they're at the peak and they need help? What would you do?

Victoria: 11:40

Yeah, so these are first I call them first aid techniques kind of like a band-aid. So you cut your finger, you put a band-aid in it so you stop the bleeding. So that's how you stop the bleeding. When you feel overwhelmed, you feel anxiety coming up, panic coming up, right. So there are these techniques to calm down, to switch again, as I said, from fight or flight to rest and digest.

Victoria: 12:02

Breath is one of those. Breath is a bridge between our mind and our body, so that's the language that our basic survival system understands. And there are so many different techniques. The one I really like, because it's so simple and so effective, is called a box breathing. So you inhale on the count of four, you hold your breath on the count of four, you exhale on the count of four and then you hold your breath again on the count of four. You hold your breath on the count of four, you exhale on the count of four and then you hold your breath again on the count of four and you repeat that four to five times. So what it does? It oxygenates your system and it sends the signal to your survival mechanisms to say the danger has passed, there is no lion in the bushes anymore you can. You know you did your job, you know we survived. Now we can continue with our life. So that's how it works. Again, first aid techniques like that Action is another one of those, because it's a stress reaction that needs to finish with a movement, with actually muscular response.

Victoria: 13:05

That's how you release that stress that builds up and um. So that's why things like you clench and you relax your muscles, that works, that sense, that signals like this is it. You know you, you made uh, you know you made your choice, you decided to act. Now you can relax and you can allow. You know other other systems come in line, you know. Your digestive system come in line, your endocrine system come in line, you know, and everything kind of go into alignment with your normal, less stressful state. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Nico: 13:42

Those are very simple things to do and very handleable, I would say, because it's usually, you know, when you're in a stress situation, you don't have a lot of stuff around you that can, you know, trigger anything. It's just what your mind and your body does at that point. So those are very nice first aid kit tools that you're supplying us with. Thank you very much for that. Now you've experienced burnout yourself. What did you hate most of it?

Victoria: 14:11

Well, a lack of motivation was one of those Lack of motivation. Lots of skepticism and negativism, and it actually comes natural assay. So you don't even, you don't even notice this. I think that's the part that is kind of sneaky, right? So you just start complaining. If you go to you know any water cooler in any environment, in any company, what are you going to hear? You're going to hear complaints, right so it's nonstop. People start complaining. That creates more negativity and you're in that state that really kind of does not help you to elevate your energy levels so that you have new ideas. You know, so to speak, right so, the vitality and vibrancy of life. So that's how you dump it.

Victoria: 15:15

So that was probably the most sneaky one for me, and I had to have some practices to really change the way I approach everyday activities and like everyday actions, to train myself to know it is things that I like instead of things that I don't like. And it is a practice, it can be trained, right. So you actually set your mind to that. And it is a practice, it can be trained Right. So you actually set your mind to that. Some people call it a gratitude practice. Yes, I think a lot of it is really about the gratitude and it's as simple as that. It's, you know, not a woo woo. It's really training yourself to know these things that you like instead of things you don't like, and that helps you to be in that state of mind that allows to look at the positive side of things. Yes, it's not like you're going to ignore the negativity or you're going to ignore the complaints, but you choose to approach them, to observe them, and approach them from a different mindset yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Nico: 16:26

It's beautiful to hear that it's indeed, it's, it's. So there's a lot of hype words going on, you know mindfulness and meditate, mindfulness and meditation. Those are not really hype words. They're very old already, but there are still hype words that use these days and, like you say, it is coming into the moment and being grateful for what you have. Coming into the moment and being grateful for what you have.

Victoria: 16:53

And coming from there. Have you ever heard of CEO disease or founder syndrome? I have not heard those terms, but I can guess what it means. If you could tell me a little bit more then I'm sure I'll recognize the symptoms.

Nico: 17:05

Yeah, most of the people on the podcast already know a couple of the symptoms, but one of them is is isolation, is micromanagement, is overrunning yourself, and that's where burnout, you know, really comes into play. Um, and it kind of depends as well. You know, you have ceo founders. They're combined as well, ceo founders but but most of the time it is something that is going on with somebody who's in a leadership role at a high level with a lot of responsibility. So high achievers are usually within that scope. These terminologies we come to people that have you know either become stressed because they are not informed of what is going on, or they themselves are causers of the stress. So I don't know if you have any experience with people who actually cause their own stress in their, you know, leadership.

Victoria: 18:04

It's very interesting because we are talking about leadership and I, you know, I talk to corporations a lot as well and then we are talking about leadership and I, you know, I talk to corporations a lot as well and then we start talking about kind of mindfulness and well-being and techniques, all of that. And the reason for this is that I am convinced and I know from experience that great leadership really starts with self-leadership. There is so much that leaders do, you know that they serve as role models. You know how they say that it's really from the head. All the changes are kind of trickling down from the head. So a lot of changes that happens within the organization really starts with the leader. So the best thing leaders can do is really become those role models of you know burnout proof leadership strategies. It does trickle down, like gratitude, for example, that we talked about before. So what it translates into the corporate doubts that the culture of appreciation and people in place who feel appreciated, they're much more effective, they're much more productive, they actually give more of their talents, of their skills, of their time to the job. But it starts with that. You know practice of gratitude that you do for yourself, and then that trickles down, you know, for people around you. So that's what we are talking about.

Victoria: 19:36

So the people who put them to stress a lot of that stress reaction, because we were talking about kind of the survival mechanism, it's run by fear. So this micromanagement and control, the other side of control is really fear, and 99% of those fears that we experience they never realize. We just live in that state of fear and that's very contagious. So fear is the most contagious of emotions, right? So if you, as a leader, you reek of fear, then everyone else around you are going to feel that as well. So, and then that translates into behavioral patterns. This micromanagement, for example, right?

Victoria: 20:17

So, like the latest, I think, greatest discussion, that should people work from home or they should work from office and not call for working from office necessarily returning to the office and being in the office, you know, full time for five days a week.

Victoria: 20:36

A lot of that is really not about productivity. If you look and you honestly to why you're making this decision, you will, you know, you will find that a lot of it is really driven by fear that I cannot control those people, I don't know what they're doing, and that can be rectified with the right practices and the right operational mechanisms where you could allow for a much greater flexibility, which will also translate into more effectiveness and productivity, into into, you know, work environment. So that's where that bridge is between your own self-leadership, your own practices, your own way of you know, preventing that burnout and kind of being in the state of well-being that will translate into your organization and that will create a much healthier environment, much more productive environment, much more you know, you know harmonic environment, right. So it will be much more harmony within the organization.

Nico: 21:37

What are the kind of symptoms that you've noticed in leaders that you know you get the idea of? They're on their way to running against that very big concrete wall or any symptoms that you've noticed, that they might notice themselves, you know if they reflect on it.

Victoria: 21:54

Yeah, so one of the red threads in this burnout right is the feeling that I'm out of control. I'm not in control of my schedule, I'm not in control of my life, I'm not in control of my job. So a lot of that is really around like I'm losing control, the overwhelm around this, and for leaders, it's very easy to get in that state because there is a lot of demands from other people, that's, you know, demands on their time, demands on their attention, so on and so forth. So that, I think, is one of those red flags that you want to notice and you want to step back and you want to see how do I actually get control over all that? And those are also, you know, very interesting practices that you can do.

Victoria: 22:45

What is it that you can control? What is it that you can control? What is it that you cannot control? So that micromanagement that you were talking about, one of the practices that should I control this? Is it going to matter? So, this thing that I'm trying to control right now, is it going to matter a week from now, two months from now, six months from now? And if it's not and the answer is not, maybe somebody else can do that. So what's that value that I bring, what's that value that I want to bring? So some of it is really, you know, kind of knowing yourself.

Nico: 23:17

Yes.

Victoria: 23:18

And crafting, and crafting that, especially as CEOs, as founders, we are at the steering wheel right, so we can craft this for ourselves. But what do we want to craft? That's a job on its own to figure that out. What is it that I want to craft?

Nico: 23:36

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And a lot of C-levels or founders they've worked on their company for so many years More CEO work, more on cultural-, cultural wise and strategy, while founders are actually building their you know, their little baby from the ground up. Well, what people do is they employ experts and then at some point they start micromanaging the experts, who are actually the people that know what they're doing, while the ceo or the ceo or the founder is not actually the person that knows how to, how it needs to be done, done, but they think they know. And then it, you know, the ball can start, starts running in a direction where they're looking at what other people are doing, but actually they're actually messing, messing with their expertise, and then come at the point where they're, you know, run against the wall and then end up there. So what would you recommend to other leaders who are striving to achieve their desire or to make their journey more fulfilling? What would you recommend on that side?

Victoria: 24:33

Well, I have lots of recommendations. So one of the yeah, so you know, we're talking about the practice of gratitude, we're talking about practice of relinquishing unnecessary control, so some of the things like you mentioned of relinquishing unnecessary control. So some of the things like you mentioned when you try to take over experts, right? So I call this surrogate activities. So, again, where is it coming from? Right? It's coming from your uncertainty, your fear, your doubt and controlling that fear, being aware of where it's coming from. That helps a lot. So, practices of awareness, of awareness, really understanding how, how your mindset works and, you know, taking responsibility for that.

Victoria: 25:17

So one of the surprising practices that you know, I keep talking over and over again is what I call self-care. So what is that self-care? It's really a practice of prioritizing, of of joy, and you have to be intentional with that so it's not going to come out of nowhere. We forget, right? So you know, behind all this different, again, responsibilities and demands, and you know we want to serve this people and want to answer to those people everything that we have to do, we actually forget what is it that we want to do? So a practice of self-care is intentionally doing things that bring joy to you that make you happy. There's no other reason for those activities to exist on your schedule and you schedule them, so that's a very interesting way to really increase the quality of your life and also to replenish your energy and the best thing you know, going back to the beginning of our conversation, the best thing there is that it's entirely in your control.

Victoria: 26:25

So there's a lot of empowerment there. That it's entirely your control and you will see immediately the changes in your own state, in your own energy level, in your own effectiveness, and people around you are going to see that as well and they'll allow for more room for you to perform those activities.

Nico: 26:45

So, yes, that's beautiful because indeed it comes down again to what comes from within going without Because the example that you set as being a calm person, a strategist in mind and in communication is where you simmer down in the activity, in the brain as well, because you trust. I found that a lot of issues can be covered by understanding trust not having trust, but understanding trust and seeing what happens when you trust somebody to complete a task without you meddling in the soup and turning the spoon around all the time. It's something that I've noticed as well, and it becomes a story of understanding your environment, yourself and yourself in that environment, and then applying certain things so that you are the example to other other people around you. So, victoria I, I think you know, from my point of view, you're very knowledgeable about this subject and and I think people might be triggered by a couple of things that you just just said um, where can people you know contact you find you, what are your triggers and what's the project that you're working on right now?

Victoria: 28:00

Well, the best way to get in contact with me is on LinkedIn. You can look up Victoria Mensch, so I put a lot of my content there. There's a way to connect with me there and learn more about what we do and how we do it. One of the projects that really interests me right now is how leadership is going to be impacted by artificial intelligence. So, and the premise that I have and I absolutely convinced in that that artificial intelligence fundamentally is going to transform how we lead people within the organization and it's going to actually demand from us to be more human. So employees are becoming more independent, more entrepreneurial. You can't just command them anymore. They'll have many more options to do it.

Victoria: 28:53

So you have to develop this new leadership styles right that are much more human, that you know, the emotionally intelligent and empathic and really are built on the foundation of maximizing the well-being of everyone around from a human perspective. So it really requires a new model of leadership and really prioritization of that. So all those things that we were talking about again, you know, goes back to that. Great leadership really starts with self-leadership. You start with yourself, you develop those skills and people around you are going to change and, lo and behold, we are in a much more um, uh, you know balanced and harmonized environment that's beautiful, that's that's really it kind of.

Nico: 29:40

It kind of hits really. Um, at the spot where I'm I'm thinking as well. Um, joram solomon, who joined the podcast in a previous episode, also indicated that leadership is a job in itself. It it's not something that you get upgraded towards. It's something that you have to see as something that you educate yourself into and understand what's going on. And, like you said, it starts from the person themselves, because in a lot of leadership trainings and whatever coaching that you do, it is about you first and then about the company or the people that you work with. So that's beautiful that you do. It is about you first and then about the company or the people that you work with. So that's beautiful that you're, you're going in that direction and, ai, absolutely I agree it's. It's a turning point. Not everybody's using it yet. Um, I even tried my kids to let them use it, but they don't see the added value yet. They're 40 and 12, so I don't, I don't understand that they're not going to be, occupied with that.

Victoria: 30:32

They will. Ask them anything.

Nico: 30:38

It's one of my team members, so AI is Luna. Luna is one of my team members and I use her. Well, I ask her a lot, I don't use her. It sounds very strange when you're saying that about a computer, but anyway. So thank you very much, victoria, and people who are listening really take on the the advice that victoria gave us a couple of great tips, just really simple stuff that can help, you know, simmer down a little bit and get down into into the regions that I always talk about jumping from head to heart and feeling that beat within, because your heart, you know, synchronizes with that breathing as well. So that kind of triggers a lot of stuff in your body that can calm you down and, you know, be chill in your job.

Nico: 31:20

So I would say, victoria, enjoy your time in Portugal, enjoy your trip back to the States, to California. It's a different country, apparently. That's what I've heard from a couple of people I talked to. But in the essence, you know the people day by day, people just do the same thing that they used to do and something's changed at some levels. But who cares? In any case, thank you so much for taking your time and well to the listeners, have a good one everybody, bye-bye.

Victoria: 31:47

Thank you, Nico.