Duena Blomstrom: 00:07

I feel very fortunate to call this next guest a close and very dear friend. Dave Grond was a banker, an executive, a very high powered one at that, and is above all an amazing human being who has the courage to be open about his true self and his feelings. A treat in the business world today where leaders choose to mask out of a need for protection. In this conversation, which turns genuinely emotional and includes even a few tears, he gifts us his genuine feelings and thoughts of having navigated a world that isn't built for authenticity but masking. Give this a listen and then find him on LinkedIn to thank him for this genuine moment and to join him in building an authentic future that signals a better life and a better mental health status for us all.

Duena Blomstrom: 01:01

Hello, and welcome back to NeuroSpicy at work. I have someone who is a very, very dear friend today with us, and him and I have spent many days and nights talking about mental health challenges in the workplace, changes outside of the workplace, and what it is like being that person that's attempting to fix it for everyone else. So welcome to the show, Dave, and thank you for accepting to talk to us today.

Dave Grund: 01:28

Thank you. Thank you. And we're also former

Duena Blomstrom: 01:31

That's why we are former reformed.

Dave Grund: 01:35

That's how we met.

Duena Blomstrom: 01:38

Met in the financial industry, and I don't know how many people are listening to this now, but one of the main things we wanted to touch on today is that we are essentially execs that had to mask all of their lives. So that's kind of a good starting point. Would you describe yourself that way there?

Dave Grund: 01:55

Yeah, absolutely. Think the biggest challenge was when I was working and living in Russia. I mean, it was also the biggest success and the highest level I ever achieved was being vice president of the largest privately owned bank in Russia twenty years ago and launching the first mobile banking app. But I had to not that I had to, but I figured I don't need the conflict and potential misunderstanding for being an openly gay man. So I kind of like not hit it, but didn't talk about it.

Dave Grund: 02:24

So, yeah, anyways, that's twenty years ago. Yeah, I've learned a lot

Duena Blomstrom: 02:29

in Yeah, twenty it's like yesterday, though, doesn't it?

Dave Grund: 02:31

I think over now that I'm 52, I think, like, I kind of think, okay, was it really worth it? If I could have done it differently, I would have. But at the same time, I couldn't have I didn't have this realization. I didn't have this kind of, like, fear of being I had the fear of being judged for that and being, I don't know, discriminated or treated differently, especially as a foreigner in a country like Russia.

Duena Blomstrom: 02:55

So let's let's paint that picture a little bit for people. I think it's interesting in particular since you're, you know, kind of out of that world and it doesn't quite the the trauma we live through in finance doesn't quite affect us as bad as it used to all of us. But I think it's really interesting to talk about the fact that at one point in our careers, we had been up there and as typical and as normal as cookie cutter would have it. But we were essentially living with a number of things that we were covering and being super spicy in many ways, right? So in your case, you were obviously, I don't know how much of this is something you want to disclose, but I know we don't have a lot of secrets from people ourselves.

Dave Grund: 03:40

I told you, I told you. I'm an open book. Either people accept me for who I am or they don't, and that's either way is fine. What's most important is that we all accept ourselves for who we are as much as possible. Good, bad and the ugly is fine.

Dave Grund: 03:56

But I don't I think that having other people accept me is less of a priority, especially when it comes to especially when it comes to working with people, because I want to work with people who actually accept and support me and celebrate Well,

Duena Blomstrom: 04:10

the that's amazing, though. I think that the journey between then and now is kind of what we want to focus on and see if we can find anything to give people to take from it. But in kind of flashback to that time when you are essentially within the belly of the beast, you were in corporate environment, you were attempting to tick all the boxes, so you make sure that you're not being jumped over in promotions and stuff. What was the conversation like when it comes to both? And I mean, the business environment, I don't necessarily mean in Russia, because obviously that's a very special environment, but you had been in between markets, both in Europe and in North America.

Duena Blomstrom: 04:49

What was that timeline twenty, twenty two, twenty three years ago in terms of saying you're queer or spicy in any which way in the workplace as compared to today?

Dave Grund: 05:03

A lot harder. But I just want to don't want it to seem like it's so easy for my young people today. I think they have a different kind of challenge and it's more about like because it's so you can be whatever you want now and it's easier, and I think that produces its own challenges there and of itself. Mean, admittedly, in this working at this bank, I don't know. I did there wasn't it never came up as an issue or something.

Dave Grund: 05:34

Mean, but the fact is, I mean, there was a nightlife back then. I mean, it was never really talked about, but there was like there were there were no, like, raids or something on bars and stuff, and it was I don't know how to explain it. So there was like the

Duena Blomstrom: 05:47

like

Dave Grund: 05:47

the underground Yeah. So, but I don't know. I mean, you asked about like what question would I ask?

Duena Blomstrom: 05:59

So if you were to kind of compare it to today, what are the bigger differences? Is it just the fact that it was more underground to have a life than it is these days?

Dave Grund: 06:11

Yeah. Absolutely. And and it's more kind of like this whole even on LinkedIn, it's not specifically Russia, but I think that, you know, the the the pronouns he he him might have in talking about these things more openly and and more accepting to to something that is not you, and bringing that into like as a as a positive as opposed to, okay, you're different, so you don't belong. And I think this is the whole kind of, yeah, cultural diversity and DEI and all this. So for me, it's like it should I think now we're at a point in life where the business world is finally realizing that you've got to take people as they are.

Dave Grund: 06:52

And it's not about DEI or diversity. I mean, it is just about accepting people for who they are. There's no need to have a label for it. We need to this label to identify when it was an issue that when it wasn't like that. But ultimately, yeah, it's like, okay, for me, it's not gay marriage.

Dave Grund: 07:13

It's just marriage between two men, right? Like, as an example. But at the time, you had to kind of like say gay marriage. Yeah. So, like, I think that we need to identify things sort of a certain way.

Dave Grund: 07:25

And then those labels should disappear because it's no longer necessary to talk about that because it's part of the normalcy. I don't like to say normalcy, but part of everyday life.

Duena Blomstrom: 07:36

I like that. So maybe this podcast

Dave Grund: 07:39

maybe this

Duena Blomstrom: 07:41

podcast one day will just be at work, no longer here, spicy at work. These days, we're still in this, know, kind of in between then, when obviously life was so difficult for yourself and everyone else who was practically in the closet to work in so many ways, both in terms of what we were like as a person and in terms of how many of us were unable to talk about our real selves and how trauma informed we were, because that's another thing we have in common as former execs who were living with trauma and yet were not discussing any of this openly. And so the difference between then, when it was all in the closet and this apotheotic future in which we're not going to even have labels, it's just going to be humans and accepted fully, is we're in this in between world where, as you can see, more and more people are attempting be more authentic, even in our segment and our ages, right? We have to a degree the new generation that's a lot more open and a lot more able to discuss who they are, they come with arrhythmia. But as you said, that comes with its own challenges.

Duena Blomstrom: 08:49

And then you have possibly the other extreme where no one still will ever disclose anything for fear of looking some type of way. But in between, we're all trying to change perception in our segment where we say, look, this is who we were all along. This is who we're willing to talk about what we're willing to talk about. And then kind of hope that this transition moves faster. You're doing a lot in this space.

Duena Blomstrom: 09:12

And that's one of the reasons we really wanted to talk today is because you've practically left that corporate life to do something about people's mental health and people's ability of showing up truly. So walk us through that journey. When did you decide you had to improve people's lives?

Dave Grund: 09:34

Honestly, honestly and quite openly, and this is the first time I'm admitting this on that kind of like open public channels when I had my near death experience 12/08/2016. And since that time, I don't know, I think it's I would never wish someone to go through what I went through, but it also was so eye opening. I don't want to get emotional. It just made me realize life is all about living, not about like we we think that something's important, but it's not. Yeah.

Dave Grund: 10:09

Being true to ourselves is the most important thing we can be.

Duena Blomstrom: 10:12

Oh, thank you for that. Good point. Today, the people are open and honest enough to to feel their feelings on a podcast. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

Duena Blomstrom: 10:21

But going

Dave Grund: 10:23

feeling being emotional is because it still is another challenge is like, I'm an emotional and sensitive person. So for me talking about something that was almost turned up in a that ceased to exist eight years ago, is is sometimes it's humbling. It's humbling because I'm I'm and I'm forever grateful for the fact that I it's like it was a reset. It was a reset on who I am and what I am, like clearing out all the cash, not c a s h, but c a c h e, and letting me be my my my potentially pure authentic self, whatever that means, based on, like, no doubt, no second guessing, and trying to just be who I am and trying to help other people be the best version of themselves. Because I think that there's no, there's, there's no we get I get nothing from, like, criticizing someone else or, like, saying that's bad or this is good or whatever.

Dave Grund: 11:30

If I can help someone be a better version of themselves by helping them become aware of something, then then great. And and and I think that's why I've become I'm still the same person in terms of like, emotional, curious, But a little bit I'm, I'm more I'm much more in service of others because that's, I think, that's how we evolve as as humans. We we we help people become the best versions of themselves, and it's it's a village. Right?

Duena Blomstrom: 12:06

I mean, it's I I wish more people and I think you've already helped people by just doing what you did right now. I I I have to believe that it whoever stumbles upon this is heartened to hear that it's okay to say I've had a moment or several moments, God forbid, many people have several brushes with death really, where you have to take accountability and hold and decide whether you're invest in yourself and who you genuinely should be or keep playing to society's hopes of you. So that's really

Dave Grund: 12:43

Yeah, let me speak. Like, it wasn't attempted suicide, but I was I'm responsible for whatever happened. And it's That's the biggest key is like accepting and owning to whatever, because it's so easy to point the finger at someone else, because it's easier than to look at yourself in the mirror and be honest with yourself. And I think that when you do that, there's so much power because then nothing could, I don't want to say nothing could shake you, but you have a much more solid foundation in who you are.

Duena Blomstrom: 13:15

When you get, when you take back that agency, and I think that's really interesting. It's hard to think of it that way, in particular, if some of the trauma that happened to you was very early on, we all, both yourself and I, are living with some degree of complex PTSD from childhood trauma, and we know that those bits, there's no accountability to be taken on that, we But know obviously, as we make choices and as we go further in life, we do put ourselves in riskier situations when we're, and or take questionable decisions when we come from that background. So I think it's really important for people to be maybe more forensic about and honest about the type of trauma they've encountered, and then say, this bucket is something I could have learned from and this bucket I had no agency towards and there's I can't blame myself for. So both those perspectives.

Dave Grund: 14:10

I think it's also I think one of the things people ask me, well, how did you come to this realization and all this, what's the way to do it? I everybody has a different path. Everybody has a different way of getting there. But I think what's really helpful for me, and I think for most people, would be just to ask yourself why. In each situation.

Dave Grund: 14:30

Why did I react to it that way? Why did I do that? Why do I want to do that? Because it's not it's not about, like, doubting yourself. It's like trying to really understand what motivates you, what's driving you, what's why, why did I react this way?

Dave Grund: 14:44

Why did I decide this? Why did I why do I like what I like? You know? And I think that's questioning why is it's like, you know, the kid who like you, something happens and you say the parent will explain, and then the kid will say, but why? And it'll keep going.

Dave Grund: 15:04

But that's that's I think that's how it should be like, because you should be so curious to understand and to kind of challenge your existing ingrained beliefs because that's not the only way you're gonna change. 100%. That's not to say Totally.

Duena Blomstrom: 15:17

And I don't wanna interrupt you, but super important that we we we say this to people again. Take some take whatever responsibility you can out of it. But equally, like I say, don't obviously don't over snow yourself into how it's your fault.

Dave Grund: 15:33

No, no. Can't run a marathon without training. And I think that, right, if you want to change, you have to take baby steps. And the first step is becoming, the observer and asking why. And that's just that's the first step because you first step is to understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then you can start making changes because you can't do everything at once.

Dave Grund: 15:59

And it's like, this is the other thing I learned is like, the inner critic, it has no place because criticizing yourself never achieves anything. You could have never done you couldn't do better. You know, I don't know how to say like, I have I used to always have a huge inner critic and I it still kind of comes up and, you know, comes up from behind. And I'm like, okay, I acknowledge you're existing, but I don't need to listen to you, you know? So it's like you are an observer of everything that's going on inside of you.

Dave Grund: 16:29

You're just, like, keenly watching and observing what's going on inside of you without any judgment, without any, you know, without trying to change at the moment. But, like, I'm saying, that's interesting. That's why I'm that's

Duena Blomstrom: 16:40

And why I'm thinking I think the the reason it's super crucial that people think under those terms today is because you probably, you know, as well as I do, and I'm sure anyone listening to this has seen it, there's more and more being uncovered between the connection to towards however much trauma an individual has had and their presentation in terms of neurodiversity, and with more and more of us finally getting a diagnosis and finally understanding where we land on life spectrum, I know how big of an affirmation that is. I think it's good for us to be genuine in our, like I say, observation and critical thinking around existing trauma that could have added to an already non neurotypical makeup. Yeah.

Dave Grund: 17:30

You know what's the biggest kind of in this whole journey was that when my friend said to me, hey, maybe you're ADHD. And then I started looking into it and I was like, okay, this is why I'm so emotional. This is why I'm so, I don't want to say addictive personality or however, like, when I go down one path, then I keep going down that regardless of what's detrimental to me. So it when something is you understand something, makes things so much easier to accept because you think, why am I doing this? Why am I such a bad person?

Dave Grund: 18:03

That's what I thought before. Right? And the ADHD explains like that explains that is normal for ADHD. So that was such a relief to understand that. And I just also want to say, you are not your diagnosis, right?

Dave Grund: 18:22

It's part of like, it helps you to understand and navigate things better. And I say that you should never be afraid of finding out more about yourself. But at the end of the day, even if you're in therapy or someone, you should always be comfortable with whatever someone gives you advice or gives you insight or whatever. If it doesn't feel right, if your gut feeling is like, no, this is I don't agree with that. Get a second opinion or I just I'm all about like trusting yourself and having the guidance of external officials, professionals or people that want to guide you.

Dave Grund: 18:55

But at the end of the day, they are not you. Yeah. And you know yourself best, whether you think it or not. Even your parents don't know you best. Even your kids do.

Duena Blomstrom: 19:04

You don't know yourself. The best suited person to both acknowledge and not probably, certainly, the best suited person to both acknowledge and and and empower yourself with the acceptance towards what you found out. So I really love that you've put it that way. I ask everyone on this podcast, what was your moment when you thought, right, I was different all along, but this is the thing I belong to, to a degree. But like you very well pointed out, that doesn't define you in any way, it just adds to the colorful palette of who you thought you were as a human to begin with.

Duena Blomstrom: 19:38

But then if you take that further and you use that lens, do you think maybe when you started coming out of the, I don't know, I would say out of the corporate haze and more into the more accepting way of thinking towards wellness and mental health and mental makeup and neuro typical versus non neuro typical makeup, Do you think that you've experienced some of this that other people are describing as autistic burnout? There are a number of other terms to it where maybe you found that the construct you had was no longer working for you quite as well.

Dave Grund: 20:14

So, I think that that's the thing, like, when you try to be that which society accepts as normal, it's so people who are neurodiverse in the sense of like that it's trying to be like what is accepted and considered normal is such it's like swimming upstream in such a strong current that it's no wonder that you're going to get burnout. And then for someone else who is, quote unquote, normal or part of this group who's not neurodiverse or as neurodiverse, they don't get it because they're not in that space. But I think that that's also our role as like being different is to educate the other people and not assume that they know and, you know, help them to understand, help them to understand that there are people who act and are different, not because of, I don't know, I'm emotional, I'm sensitive, and people would say, you should not react like that. It's not professional. Well, but it's me, right?

Dave Grund: 21:19

So what's professional, not professional? It's like, then when I say I have ADHD, say, Oh, okay. So then it's acceptable. But it should be acceptable in general. Like, you should understand why someone is reacting the way they do, you know?

Duena Blomstrom: 21:32

Yeah. No, I don't know how any of this lands with people, but I hope some of it is resonating. And I think it's really empowering for women in particular to hear that men at work have sometimes been painted with the same two emotional brush that we have had to deal with in the workplace for forever. It's one of those things that you have to live with. Manhood.

Duena Blomstrom: 21:55

Unfortunately, as a woman, it can never look too emotional.

Dave Grund: 22:01

But it should No, I don't I think you might joke about that, but I think that's the I think that the reason we have a lot of problems in the world is because of cis white men who basically white, straight men, hetero men who basically have not brought enough emotion into any situation. And I don't mean to be derogatory, but I think that that is you only are transactional and you're not feeling what you're doing, that's a yeah, that's a I mean, that's recipe for disaster, same as being too emotional. So there's yeah, it's about a mix. And I've got a friend who basically his started his startup that is basically helping men to have conversations with therapists because men don't get help, even though, I mean, women are this is statistically proven that women are more open about talking about their emotions, their feelings, and their challenges. Men need also need to step up their game in that.

Dave Grund: 23:04

This whole thing like boys don't cry is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's like this tough macho kind of thing. I think that a woman can be macho and a man can be sensitive and crying. Like, I think that these gender specific norms is is so out of place. Like, the woman stays home and cooks, like, from nineteen sixties, you see, you know?

Dave Grund: 23:28

Father comes home. You know? I just it's like

Duena Blomstrom: 23:30

Really big topic, I think, this month. And it's it's it's, you know, fundamental that we we are clear that what's happening today in society and in the workplace, in particular, when it comes to male identity and this insane demand of removing humanity for the mere reason of having a different chromosomal structure has to stop and it has to start with men being more courageous to investigate and allow themselves to be not on Fridays slightly more emotional, on exactly that, but be able recognize emotions and accept that they have to become an emotional being is crucial. And it is the only way we're going to stave off this insane epidemic of male suicide we're witnessing every day. So if we and I want to be clear, this is yes, it does depend on males being more courageous, but it is in no way reduced to males. There are segments upon segments of society that are female led where that same mentality of Boys Don't Cry is being propagated.

Duena Blomstrom: 24:41

And unfortunately, haven't made a lot of room for men to feel their feelings and to be safely in a space where they can be emotional and vulnerable. And that needs changing right away. We're bringing up a new generation that's going to fall into the same patterns despite their better tries. I mean, we have these very young males that are coming to the world with a much more open perspective. But if we're going to throw them into the same society in the workplace where they're expected to be different, we're wasting another generation.

Dave Grund: 25:18

You're right. And you hit a kind of nail on the head that basically what's missing is that there is no we have feedback mechanisms in the workplace for how we perform in our productivity, but we don't have for how other people make us feel or how, you know, there's no, well, you know, that time where we discussed this and, you know, there's no feedback loop for emotions. And that's such a missing part because we are humans. But yeah, people say, okay, it's not part of the business world, it's how you feel, but it is. And I think that the challenge is, and that's why I go back to that whole point of why the world is the way that it is, is that there hasn't been enough emotions, there has not been enough feelings.

Dave Grund: 26:01

To say that, oh, that's not professional, well, but it's me. So I think that we created something, governments, companies, whatever, that don't function like nature does. Nature is an ecosystem. We need to have we need to take account and consideration and respect and discuss every aspect of ourselves. It's not about sharing all of our personal life at work, but it's to be exact not exactly, but to be able to be expressive as we are outside of work, as we are at different hats.

Duena Blomstrom: 26:36

Right. Very, very true. It all does come back to this, Karnalov, and we both are running startups that are attempting to make the world place a better place. And we know what an uphill battle it is and how absolutely impossible it can be in some, particularly in some economies and some industries where it's worse than others and so on. But realistically, it all does boil down to this.

Duena Blomstrom: 26:58

If you're professional, you're not meant to be emotional. And if you start excluding these two, then you literally have no basis of doing better in a place where we are spending the vast majority of our lives and where this attitude of society towards what's normatively correct is being propagated. So undoubtedly, that's where it needs to change, where at the very core of enterprises, it's no longer unprofessional to be human.

Dave Grund: 27:29

But Yan, you know, it's funny because people say, how does it affect the bottom line? And I mean, the bottom line means that it's like less people quitting, quiet quitting, less people calling in sick to to burn out or whatever. I mean, there's a statistic that just came out so far in the first half of this year in Germany. There's, like, one in seven people called in sick due to I forget what it was. It was, like, a combination of, like, stress, sick, but it's just the number of people calling calling in sick due to burnout is keeps going up every year in a country like Germany now.

Dave Grund: 28:08

So it's not sustainable the way that we're going forward. We need to talk about these things because all this stuff is preventable. Yeah. It's not Just talking is not going to solve problems, but it's going to hopefully manage and not let it get worse. Right?

Dave Grund: 28:25

Because as soon as you're able to talk about something, it shifts the perspective or the pressure. The pressure is a little bit That's

Duena Blomstrom: 28:32

what we're hoping with this. We're hoping that we we we reach enough people. They don't necessarily need to tell anyone else that they're doing that, but they have that thought later on of evaluating. Am I allowing for other humans to be emotional around me? Am I allowing for me to be emotional?

Duena Blomstrom: 28:49

What fear is holding me back? What would that necessarily do to my professional life? And even just starting to break this down and think of these different aspects is what's going to open up the workplace to the degree that this new generation coming in will have a space to be themselves. Like you well said, they do have a lot more awareness as to who they are. We have a whole generation of young men that are a lot more EQ than their fathers and grandfathers ever were.

Duena Blomstrom: 29:18

But equally, if they will then come into an environment that will shun them for it or not advance them professionally or teach them that it's still not acceptable, then we haven't done all of that work that society is trying to put into the rights of people that are different, who are, let's face it, not a minority, but very likely not necessarily majority either, but at least on par with everyone else.

Dave Grund: 29:43

Yeah, but I think, yeah, and I also think that like it's not but but and, yes, and. I think that because I see myself and saw myself always as different, I just, I don't know, I've always been so much more creative and I see the world through a different lens and that's sometimes a burden, but also a very, it's a superpower because when you're able to see it through a different lens, you're able to come up with ideas that nobody else has. And I go back to kind of like, okay, it's at work is what we're talking about. I think the education system needs to change to teach empathy and to teach kids how to deal with their emotions because without that, it doesn't matter how smart you are. You're always gonna get sidetracked if you, you know, are a a slave to your emotions if you don't know how to manage your process those things.

Dave Grund: 30:35

Right? How to process disappointment or shame or embarrassment or fear or shyness, you know? We don't teach you to.

Duena Blomstrom: 30:46

An incredibly good It does have to start with education. There are couple of countries in the world where that's attempted. There's some signals from Australia that the idea of EQ is being now or emotional intelligence is now being almost graded in some schools in some places. I think that should be universally the case around the world. It's insane that we have gone through life without teaching people the most important social skills they would need further.

Duena Blomstrom: 31:12

But absolutely, this needs to change. But even if you look at popular science these days, you'll see that there's a shift, there's a lot more openness to allowing blanket of society that were otherwise cut off from being allowed to be expressive to more access it. But is that shift fast enough, in particular in a world where we have to kind of kick into gear these days so that we become more human quickly before machines take the rest of the jobs that they can do?

Dave Grund: 31:43

Yeah, that's the thing. If we don't do it, if we don't do it now, then machines will replace us. The thing that machines cannot replace, and I don't ever believe fully that it will be like, even if you say that something becomes sentient, I don't know. It's like, I think that's the thing that humans have that any computer will never have is that this this this soul, this real, you know, connection with that which is which is the the world, the nature and whatever. Right?

Dave Grund: 32:11

That's another reason I think that's this is imperative, like, because if you don't change and you don't adjust to becoming that which is not replaceable, then it will be replaced. So this is another motivation, not to the bottom line, but to pure existence. If you want your company and the teams to exist in the future, you need to shift to become that's something that Right. And I

Duena Blomstrom: 32:33

I get on this time horse all the time daily for work, and I'm almost lost to repeat it, but it is surprising to me that anyone is attempting to be a leader in this day and age without cultivating that being the only thing that remains uniquely human in the leadership side of things, which obviously the decision making will be a lot more easy to outsource to whoever does it better. The bits where you micromanage are outsourceable. I don't know why anyone would need them. But the parts where you are the human that's there to be inspirational and to be guiding and to be empathic, those are supposedly the last, at least to be replaced. So the fact that leaders around the world are not getting themselves in better shape from those perspectives faster is just part of this insane denial they live through, don't you think?

Dave Grund: 33:26

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's two sided. It's like you fear the change and by embracing it, you acknowledge the fact that it's going to happen. So it's kind of like this double edged sword. If I don't do anything, I'm safe for now.

Dave Grund: 33:41

But if I do something, I invite this change You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like it's yeah, it's a dichotomy that of, like, parallel analysis paralysis, but you it's coming in any case. Yeah. I think also I think this whole traditional kind of org chart from top down and big boss and middle manager and all that, I honestly think that that will not disappear, but it will evolve to, like, circles. And, like, I like to talk about holacracy, but I think that when there are systems that can ensure that we are being ethical, responsible, and whatnot in terms of, like, automating certain decisions, then we need to be able to embrace this aspect that is not that, which is like, you know what I'm saying?

Dave Grund: 34:25

Like, just to be people, to share and communicate ideas. So I see the future not being, you know, I have a manager, but we are in a circle together. We are a team of individuals that come together to do a certain task, and then we disband and we come together. I think the future organization is lots of this coming together, doing stuff and disbanding and get them coming. And it's continuously shifting, like, you know, evolving like, I don't know what to say.

Dave Grund: 34:53

Yeah, you know, it's not like set hear me or something, always changing situation, depending on external factors, the success rate, you know, all these different things. I think that it's a continuously evolving organization, a living organization.

Duena Blomstrom: 35:11

Yes. Hope we're not that far from it. I really like that perspective. The ability to dynamically team and re team in particular, then it will even more underline whether or not people have the capability. So to find that we're not training people in doing just that is blowing my mind these days.

Duena Blomstrom: 35:27

But you're right, it's because the vast majority of the business world is stuck in a wishful thinking pattern of hopefully everything's going to go back to it being 1994 or any day now, and that's very unlikely.

Dave Grund: 35:41

I think the reason that we also, many of us think that that might happen is because COVID kind of it changed and stopped many things, but many things went back to as they were before. So I think that there is that we're influenced. If corona hadn't happened, I don't think we'd be having these thoughts as much because, like, some big thing happened, stopped the world. And this, I mean, AI and technology advancing is same, same, but different. It's not going to stop the world, but it's definitely going to change the way that we do business and interact with each other.

Dave Grund: 36:22

So I don't know if you would you would it be okay

Duena Blomstrom: 36:24

if Absolutely. I talk to I'm sure people want to hear in particular because you've spent so much time trying to land this very concept. Please let us know what what do you what what the idea is.

Dave Grund: 36:37

Yeah. So, I mean, we all have habits, right? And so my idea is grounded in the we're we're to have digital habits. And everything that we're doing has some kind of, like leaves some kind of trace or has a data trail, right? What I want to do is take all those different data that we're giving out to different companies and they're profiting from our use of their services, take it and put it into like your own little data pool.

Dave Grund: 37:04

And we use artificial intelligence to help it extrapolate different assumptions that over time will become more and more accurate with you as a person or user correcting, adjusting, or rejecting the assumptions that the AI has, all in the goal to help you to become the best version of yourself. So I say like, I try to empower people to become the superhero of their own mental health, because I think that there's not enough being done to help people help themselves to, you know, yes, we say this, we say that, we have different tools that can help us, but there's no continuous feedback loop that runs on autopilot. And this is what I this is why I love this idea because it's helped every person will have a different success story or whatever you want to call it from it. And that's what I love about it because I'm not I'm just building the infrastructure. People make it what it what they need it for for themselves.

Dave Grund: 38:07

Right? It's kind of like the analogy of like, okay, unless I look in the mirror and I see, okay, you know, I've lost 15 kilos, we were talking about this. Unless I see that I have a stomach, then I can't step on a step on a scale and see how much maybe weight I need to lose. So it's like the subjective reflection on these habits and then having some kind of actual analytical, decision making thing that could help you. You're always the ultimate person who's gonna make a decision of whether you wanna do something, but we don't have that's a missing missing link.

Dave Grund: 38:41

We're doing all this, putting all this stuff out. That's why there's doom scrolling. That's why there's anxiety. That's why there's all this other other stuff. Even when if someone's bullied online, I think that this platform could help people better understand that to become more resilient, right?

Dave Grund: 38:56

I'm not trying to self world hunger or something. I'm trying to help people help themselves manage the things that they're doing, the daily stress and struggles of

Duena Blomstrom: 39:07

love it. So it's people's more of a life, a genuine life assistant that you have created yourself between you and the ability of artificial intelligence. And together, you're creating a story that empowers you to be a better version of yourself. I absolutely love it.

Dave Grund: 39:26

If you choose to, if you choose to, and that's the thing. So for me, it's like we're already giving all this data to different companies. So why not take a copy of that which we're giving out and use that and plug it in somewhere and let the magic of ChatGPT or whatever you want to call it, not ChatGPT but LLM or whatever, give you insights that you wouldn't have never realized on your own. And I'm looking forward to that actually. I don't want to be like, oh, wow.

Dave Grund: 39:59

But it's like the bridge to where you are and where you want to be. But how do you know that you need therapy? How do you know that meditation will help you unless there's something that is able to look at your habits and make some extrapolation and assumptions that, hey, maybe you'd benefit from this meditation app, or maybe you'd benefit from doing a cooking course or learning a new skill or something like that. But we don't know until we have this feedback on our existing habits. So, think that, you know, banning certain social media apps and whatnot is not the solution in all cases.

Dave Grund: 40:37

In some cases, yes, for young people. But if you have this little kind of like, the best friend you've never had but always wanted talking in your ear saying, hey, you know, maybe you want to take a break from Instagram. It's up to you. But, you know, not being judgmental, not basing it on some kind of linear thing like time, but really saying, hey, you know, maybe you want to take a break. You know, like whispering in your ear, Hey, maybe you want to take a break.

Dave Grund: 41:08

But it's the best part is like, there's no shame, no judgment, no nothing. Like, it's based on your own. You can't you can't deny what it comes up with. I mean, you can you know what saying? Like, it's basing it

Duena Blomstrom: 41:21

on Right. It comes out with your own actions that they have. Absolutely. I love it. I love it.

Duena Blomstrom: 41:26

I think, look, you heard it here first, but one day this should be ubiquitous in your device and it would have been

Dave Grund: 41:35

That's my goal. That's honestly my goal because for me, I'm all about impact. I want to empower people to be able to do this if they choose to. And I ultimately, I want to build an infrastructure where other people can build solutions. I don't want to make it just for me.

Dave Grund: 41:53

I want to or from me. I have the idea. I'm planting the seed, but it needs a lot of people to help, like, make it a reality that is like yeah.

Duena Blomstrom: 42:03

This is a really good a really good open call. And I think I put a couple of links to your LinkedIn profile so people can get in touch. And I know there are, you know, pockets of people building various things around the world. And I do think that this is not the time for either of us to be super proprietary, but if anything, for all of us to come together and attempt to because solve it is an emergency, the mental health crisis at work is an emergency. The way we're looking at people being resilient in the workplace and not losing their lives to lack of knowledge and lack of empowerment in terms of technology and tools is an emergency.

Duena Blomstrom: 42:41

For that to solve, I'm just anyone listening to this who has been seeing our startup work online can just get in contact, we'd love to hear. We're more than open to any kind of partnerships, and we know that this needs to land at the right side of things soon. But meanwhile, I think it's a really hopeful message, and I thank you for telling us both the very raw story of your experience and kind of where you see it going so that we help other people through it. So thank you so much for coming on the show, Dave. I'll ask you back again soon.

Duena Blomstrom: 43:12

And I hope everyone got something out of it, and they will get in contact with yourself, and we can finally see a genuine superhero of our mental health made by ourselves, plus the data that we've given AI. Love that. Thank you so much again, and we'll see you soon.

Dave Grund: 43:32

Thanks, Dwayne. Bye.