In this conversation, Dr. Michelle Barton explains why adversity is a normal part of building a company and why teaching founders to handle it is still treated as optional, drawing on her research with wildland firefighters, expedition racers and military units.

She describes how dysfunctional momentum keeps teams on a failing course, the questions that interrupt it and what a relational pause looks like when anxiety hits a team.

The discussion also examines why strain belongs to the whole team, how a two-person startup can still spread it and why wellness programs built around self-care can leave people believing they are the problem.

In this conversation, Dr. Kristen Jennings Black explains why struggling in silence carries its own risk, drawing on her research with soldiers, healthcare workers and attorneys.

She describes how the fear of being judged can lead people to handle everything alone, why self-reliance becomes a problem when it's misapplied and how founders shape what feels safe to say.

The discussion also examines what co-founders lose when they avoid hard conversations, why no one can meditate their way out of a 60-hour work week and how friends or family can help.

In this conversation, Dr. Marcus Wolfe explains why failure doesn’t automatically teach founders anything and why losing a company can feel like losing a sense of self, drawing on his research into entrepreneurial grief and his own experience as a founder.

He describes the three ways founders cope with that grief, why moving between loss and recovery leads to the most learning and how the story a founder tells about a shutdown should change over time.

The discussion also examines why stress builds up in founders’ bodies even when they say they feel fine, why investors still expect founders to suffer and why being available is the most useful thing friends and family can offer.