Empowering Your People - Andrew Denton - The Revenue Maze - Episode #028

Today’s guest is an innovative thought leader that is focused on empowering the powerless. He is passionate about building better methods for how we interact with our relative world and helping people to better understand how their brain works. Andrew Denton is the Founder of Glia Health and Prosper AI. Andrew shares how to connect with your team, what happens when you come to a wall, and the importance of staying humble as a leader.

Takeaways:

  • Your leadership, team, and, ultimately, company culture are what really drive your business forward and make it easier to attain your revenue goals.
  • To get out of the revenue maze, you need to invest in your team in every way that you can. Not everyone is motivated by money, you need to find what matters to your people.  When you’re helping everyone reach their goals, they’ll help you reach yours.
  • Set up one-on-one conversations with your employees every two to three weeks to discuss how they are doing, what they want, and what they think about the organization. This will help you know how to incentivize them and check in on their own goals.
  • Get creative with how you reward your employees and how you solve problems for them. There are many ways to empower your team that don’t revolve around money.
  • No matter who you are, there will be walls that you hit in your life. Some walls are meant to be passed by others are meant to be broken down, what you do when you come to that wall will show who you are.
  • You need opportunities and people around you that can keep you humble. If you and your business are going to succeed, you need people that will shoot you straight.
  • Make sure that the product that you are making is worthwhile and will make a real impact on the world.

Quote of the Show:

  • “Learn what they want out of life and then figure out how you can help them attain those goals, and you’ll often find that they’ll help you attain yours.” (3:51)

Links:

 

Ways to Tune In:

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Empowering Your People – Andrew Denton – The Revenue Maze

I am so grateful for the following that we’re getting and for you, readers, this is fantastic. I have a great guest. I had so much fun with him in talking about this show. You’re going to love him. First of all, he has moved twenty times under the age of eighteen. Rarely is that a distinction. I think only Mel at Omicle has been at like 38, but it wasn’t under age eighteen, so that was different.

I love that he loves to empower the powerless, and he doesn’t ever underestimate a great work ethic. In fact, he will not ever be a victim. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. He is working through aiming to accurately simplify the brain and improve the discovery, diagnosis, and treatment of brain health disorders. He is also passionate about building better methods for how we interact with our relative worlds. He is the CEO at Glia Health. Welcome, Andrew Denton.

Thank you so much for having me, Valerie. I appreciate the glowing intro. I try to be a little bit more humble than that, but as long as someone else is saying that about me and not myself, then I’ll take it.

I have been told by some of my guests that it’s like, “Who is that person that you’re describing?” It’s great to have you on the show. We always do one thing first. We always answer the question, what is one thing that you can tell the readers that will help them get out of the revenue maze?

There are so many things you can talk about when it comes to revenue and being in the revenue maze. More broadly, I would like to talk about leadership and team in company culture. That’s what’s going to drive your business forward and to make it easier to attain those revenue goals, so you’re not chasing the cheese but when the cheese comes to you.

The more that you can develop and impact your team, the more that it’s going to show a return in your personal business. That’s how it’s been in my life. I built Glia Health on passion, belief and work ethic. The team around me who joined me on that enterprise, I didn’t have money to pay them in transparency. I was trying to make a dream happen, and they said, “We want to sign onto this because we believe in you and we believe in the product.”

I felt a real debt responsibility to give back to them in the ways that I could. That circular relationship between myself as the founder and the team around me, mutually benefiting each other, was impactful for me. I’d say if you want to escape the revenue maze, invest in your team in all the ways that you can. It’s not always a dollar sign. Find out what matters to people, whether it’s their passion, hobbies, or home life. If they want a work-life balance, more education or a better opportunity in their future role. Learn what they want out of life and figure out how you can help them attain those goals. You’ll often find that they’ll help you attain yours.

We often on this show will talk about team and things like that. That’s talking about it in the bullet points. You gave three. It’s easier said than done. Give us some pointers on how others can do that.

I would say specifically, one of the best ways you can build a team is having those conversations with the team who you bring on board. You need to schedule those one-on-ones at least once every two and a half to three weeks. It’s important that you have a consistent cadence with your team. That way, they can feel involved in the organization, but they can also understand that you’re keeping track of them.

Not in a work productivity perspective but their life and who they are as a person. If they feel like they’ve been listened to and heard, then it’s going to go miles in terms of how they’re able to communicate with you as a leader. I’d start with that. Set up one-on-ones, make sure it’s a cadence of about three weeks, too short.

If less than that, a week or two weeks, it’s too often and people don’t have the updates that you’re looking for in those type of engagements. If it’s too long, if it’s four weeks, once a month, once every two months, it can be where you’re not able to create that tight bond with your team. Three weeks is a pretty good cadence for me and my startup experience. This might not apply to a larger corporation. Maybe the cadence will change, but I’d say certainly start with that.

Number two, get creative in the same way that you have to figure out what problems you solve for your business. You need to determine what problems you can solve for your team. I had a UX design intern come work for me at Glia Health. They were a fantastic designer. They worked hard. They produced good work, but they were brand new and pretty green.

We were offering them the chance to build their corporate experience as they just started out in their new career path. They came to me one day and said, “Andrew, can I talk to you? I’ve got a potential job offer on the table here. I wanted your opinion on if the compensation was fair. If it is, would you be willing to write me a recommendation letter and recommend me to that job?”

Pretty brave conversation with this girl who came to me with because for some people that can be a little bit disconcerting. It’s like, “I’m going to my current boss to tell them that I’m probably going to be leaving and if they can give me this approval.” It was a testament to the relationship that I had built with her over that she felt that she could trust me enough with that information instead of leaving, quitting and saying, “I’m out of here.”

I said, “I’d help you with this. I want you to be successful in your career.” The way I look at it selfishly is either you’re going to support me in my business and we’re going to build a better world together or I’m going to potentially be a customer of yours in the future. If I’m a customer of yours in the future, then I want to ensure or I want to know that the people who are working for those businesses that I’m a client of are putting forth good work.

I went on both ends selfishly, whether they work for me or they work for someone else. As long as they’re doing great work, I’m happy. In this case, this girl was. Her problem was she wanted an income, and she wanted a way to provide for a family. I couldn’t provide that at my startup, but what I could do is give her experience and recommend her to a place that could.

For other people, they wanted to stay with Glia and build something impactful and be with us for the long term. Their why was changing the world in the way that they knew how. My role in that place was to foster an environment where they felt that they could make the decisions that didn’t necessarily sink the ship.

They’re above the waterline, so they could still be impactful in the organization, but they didn’t have the weight of the world whether it was going to work out or not. Figure out your team’s why , and you can do that in those one-on-one conversations then get creative with how you solve those problems. Sometimes it’s reaching out to context in your own industry and going, “This person works for me currently, but they need a paid position. How can they work at your company? What would you like to see from them that I can vouch for?”

TRM 28 | Empowering Your People

Empowering Your People: Figure out your team’s why in those one-on-one conversations, and then get creative with how you solve those problems.

It might even be partnered with the university to develop young talent at those college classes and give them a real taste of what it’s like to work in the real world. There are a lot of different avenues on how you can empower your team that don’t revolve around a dollar sign. I’ve learned that through these past months building Glia. It was tough at first though, to be fair when I started.

I was like, “What do I do?” I have all this clinical knowledge around brain health, and yet I have no one else or no team. I didn’t have people who knew how to build a business or do design work or code out an application or create a sales process. All of that was new to me. Granted, I took some time, read some books and learned what I could but ultimately, I’m never going to be an expert in those spaces. I had to bring or find people to come alongside me and empower them to be the expert and allow them to do what they do best.

You bring up some good timely subjects because not everything is motivated by money. We know that by statistics. As well, we’ve surveyed and all that fun stuff but the understanding of the why. We can get into Simon Sinek and a bunch of that stuff but understanding and spending that time and building those relationships.

We always say in the revenue world, “People buy for their reasons.” I bring that up all the time. Until you uncover those reasons, you’re guessing. If you don’t have that one-to-one and develop those relationships, you won’t know the answer. You won’t have the ability to say, “What makes this person tick?” We’re always selling, whether you’re in a sales profession or not. As a leader, you’re always selling and because of that, you’re selling your ideas. You’re selling why you’re building your why, why you’re building this, and you’re trying to create people to help people align with that. That vision and those things.

I always thought it was very interesting, especially when you and I first spoke that your work ethic is top-notch. When we’re talking about things like great resignation and now, the big coin term because there’s always got to be a coin term, silent resignation and employee engagement. Gallup has always had a lot to say about employee engagement, and you’ve touched on the first three things that get employees engaged.

They need a purpose. They need to have passion about what they’re doing. If you can untap that during the one and ones, then it’s a win for you both because then they are engaged. You also have your objective of empowering people to do their best selves, then your company flourishes. Pretty cool stuff from you. I think you told me that you began that journey and learning. You’re with Glia for months, right?

It was January 01, 2021 when we officially founded.

You found it a bit on some of those principles as well because you have a live story. It’s fun to hear your live story and things about coming back and maintaining a 4.0 and getting that grit that you had to pull deep within to use. Tell us a little bit about that.

My story, at least around my academic success, starts a little bit earlier in life. I was a gifted and talented student. I made straight A’s all through high school. I could sleep in class and make an A. I got to say not to brag.

That makes us all angry but keep going.

It was the case. School came very easy for me and when I went to college, I got a scholarship. It was great then. I tried to maintain the same habits that got me good grades in high school but that didn’t translate when I went to college. It was a different ballgame, different playing field and I didn’t do well. I fell apart. I graduated from high school in three years, but college should be five and a half. It was a bit of a rude awakening, like, “Andrew, you messed up here.” I graduated a 2.7 GPA and a Bachelor’s in Neuroscience and the workforce after that, got married and a few dead-end jobs.

Some years had passed, and I was like, “I’m not happy with how my life’s turned out. What did I do wrong?” I had a come to Jesus moment where I was looking at myself and waking up which I’m incredibly grateful for. Not everyone has that self-realization around how their life has turned out. Some people keep going on that same path. I’m like, “I’m going to go back to school. I’m going to do it the right way,” because I do enjoy the material. I know that if I kick my own butt and put my head down, do the work in, I can accomplish it, so that’s what I did.

I went, I had to beg, plead, borrow, cry and crawl my way into a master’s program at my alma mater. I had an interview with the dean. I had to write a letter, and they said, “We’ll let you back in our university. We weren’t happy with your undergraduate performance, but we’ll let you in on probation. If you fall below a 3.5 GPA, we’re going to kick you out within six months.” They said, “You’re on probation the moment you step on our campus again.”

I said, “I promise you that you’ll never see lower than a 4.0.” I did that by working a full-time job. I had an unpaid internship on top of that and full-time at school. I accomplished it in two years and I got the 4.0 like I said I would. It was the hardest years of my life outside of building a startup because that was a whole other mountain of climb.

Until that point, it taught me about what it takes to succeed. I had this rosy-colored view of success that either some people are lucky or they had easier but going through that, like hitting that rock bottom and then kicking myself and going, “I need to do this the right way.” It taught me that work ethic is one of the most powerful, not only motivators but intangible assets that we all each have. I have this dichotomy of motivation versus discipline.

Work ethic is one of the most powerful intangible assets that we each have.

Discipline is there for when you don’t have the motivation to accomplish the task you do. Motivation is to give you a break to make it easy for you. I think you need both and have a balance. Don’t do something that you don’t want to do in life. You’ll never have the motivation to succeed. You’ll eventually burn out if that’s all you have, is discipline.

If all you have is motivation, you’ll burn out. You’ll burn out for the other reason is that it’s too difficult for you. You won’t have the drive to succeed past it. I’m probably butchering that phrase, but that’s essentially the idea I’m trying to get across. You need both to be successful. Work ethic, I would say, is probably where I would weigh the scale. If they’re both equal, I’d probably weigh it closer to work ethic and discipline.

To be successful at the level that a lot of people want to be or at least they see, whether it’s a media, Instagram, their coworkers, peers or friends, it takes a work ethic that they might not be accustomed to, but everyone can do it. Everyone can pull that out of themselves. It takes some self-realization and self-actualization around it.

You described the equation for grit. Motivation and plus discipline equals grit. You are very gritty. It’s very interesting because I know on one show, one of them was talking about planting seeds. I think it was Jordan Schindler if I remember right. Not giving up while you plant those seeds because it takes discipline to not give up, but also to completely stay motivated on that original passion and tap into your why to do that.

Especially in the startup space. Sometimes, it can take years to get through funding. It can take years if you’re straddling healthcare now. Sometimes, you end up in some government approval which can take 8 or 9 years sometimes. I used to always tell people in healthcare, “The CMS isn’t moving. Move around that mountain,” but the same is true even in any government regulation.

You come up against these obstacles, so you’re motivated. I can’t remember if it was you I was talking to you years ago when I was a vocal instructor. I was a coach. I sang opera for many years, then I coached it for about ten years. It was more on the side because I wanted to help people at that point. One of the things that I had, and I use this as an example all the time, is it’s rare that somebody is tone-deaf.

They almost have to learn it’s because if they sound like their parents, they have learned to sound like their parents. They should be able to somehow in their brain start to match pitches. I had a little student, and she wanted to win solo and ensemble. She came to me, and she did what you said. She went in and said, “I will do anything to be able to sing.” It was painful. It was painful because she was the closest to being tone-deaf that I’ve ever dealt with.

Week after week, I said, “You’re not going to be singing. You’re going to hit one note and repeat it until you can’t get it wrong and you match that with your ear.” There’s no way to diagram how you match a pitch. You’re like, “I can’t put my hands on it. I don’t know what to do.” I’ll be dipped but this gal, six months went through that.

Most would’ve given up because it’s like, “I still can’t match the pitch. I still can’t do it.” She did. She went on and won solo one ensemble and it was because she wanted it so bad. She had the discipline to get through the hard time because you talked about your high school years. It was easy but college all of a sudden opened your world. It wasn’t so easy.

It took me a long time to learn that like, “You’re probably not doing the right set of behaviors to be successful here.” I kept doing the same. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That was me in college, dumb kid. I look back on that time in my life and there were some good times. No doubt but probably too many in fairness. You’re right. That story you talked about, the girl who was trying to practice to make sure that she could sing, mirrors so much of what it takes in business but even in personal life like personal development because at some point, you will hit a wall. That wall will happen irrespective of who you are, what your upbringing is, you will find a wall.

How you respond to that wall will show you who you are. Some walls are meant to be broken down. Some walls are meant to be to go around but what I don’t want to see is someone to look at a wall and go, “I’m going to turn the other way.” You’re on a path for a reason. You started that path for a reason. This girl wants to be a singer for a reason. I wanted to be successful in my academic career for a reason and it’s tough. I hear all the time that like, “There’s no shame in giving up.”

TRM 28 | Empowering Your People

Empowering Your People: At some point, you will hit a wall. That wall will happen irrespective of who you are or what your upbringing is. How you respond to that wall will show you who you are.

For me, I’m like, “There is a little bit for me. I don’t believe in giving up.” I’ll say this, there probably is a place for it but I’m going to do everything I freaking can before I do that. It should be a last resort. I’ll say that’s also something separate than tasting different things. Gary Vee talks about when you’re trying to find your passion and what you want to do in life.

A lot of his advice to young adults is to try different things, do different jobs, go garage selling, work at a McDonald’s, go to school, be a welder, a plumber or start a business. Walking away from those tasting experiments is perfectly okay because you’re finding out who you are, what you like about yourself and what you want to do in life.

Once you know, “I want to be a doctor, or I’m going to be a pilot or I’m going to be the best lemonade stand stellar in the world,” then go after it and learn everything you can about what you’re doing because you owe it to yourself to do your best. People all say that you should give your best to the world because the world deserves it. I’m like, “Not so much. I think you owe it to yourself,” because if you want to live a life that’s empty of regret at the end of it.

The last thing you want to do is look back and go, “I wish I did this differently or I wish I was put forth more effort here.” I had a small taste of that with my college experience and I’m glad I had it early and young. I’m fortunate and very grateful for it. I’m still learning. My humility is tested and grown every day.

Starting in a startup is an exercise in patience and in humility because you never know enough and you never know as much as you want to know but it’s great. I wouldn’t change the journey for the world. You go into it with an arrogant mindset like, “I’m going to be the best.” Let’s say you find some success in it and you then grow arrogance out of it. That’s a quick way to get humble again.

I did have somebody once say that if you say you’re humble, you’re not.

That’s true and that’s why I say mine’s an exercise.

Exercise and humility. I know, I heard that. That was so fun.

I’ll admit it. I got a 4.0 and a with a Master’s in Platin Neuroscience and Cognition, started to two companies, it’s very easy for that head to get big undoubtedly. I’m not going to shy away from that but I recognize that about myself. There could be an ego here if I let it go out of hand and I don’t want it to. In truth, I don’t. I think everyone has met that that person who is a jerk, for lack of a better term. They think they have arrived and maybe they have but it’s not a fun experience. I don’t want to be that guy.

Bullet one, don’t be that guy. Bullet two, check your ego at the door. Bullet three, you have to do one-on-one. If you didn’t understand bullet 1 and 2, you will once you go into a one-on-one with somebody.

Your team will check. If they’re a good team, if you brought the right people on, they’ll check you. They’ll go, “You’re treating me poorly. I didn’t come on to your team to be yelled at. I have my own responsibilities and priorities and things I want to do in life. Don’t treat me this way.” Very quickly, that’s going to happen. If you only knew the stories I heard from some of my team that tell me about jobs that they’ve worked at. I don’t know how these guys are managers, leaders or founders. I’m like, “What are you folks doing?”

If you have a good team and you brought the right people on, they’ll check you.

Sometimes it is interesting, and I’m a bit older than you. We’ll say a tiny bit but I am a lot older than you. I learned a long time ago that there are three truths: your truth, my truth, and the truth. Sometimes when I’m in a one-on-one with somebody, it’s like, “What are we going to be dealing with now?” Some of the truths are aligned. It’s just because you’re coming at different perspectives. Sometimes it’s coming to the middle and that becomes a communication thing. That’s a whole other episode but what, what I love about what you’ve been saying, I think it is what brought you to build Glia too.

Some of the best products out there are the ones that the world can handle now but also that solve such a good challenge within the globe. Some of that has come from your life experiences that we’ve talked about. Tell us a little bit about how you came about Glia and why that’s a difference from some of the other mental health applications that are being built out there now.

To briefly preface, one of my core values is integrity and accountability. Throughout all my faults, I try to make sure that I know who I am. Accountability in my awareness of my successes but also the awareness of where I’m falling short. When I founded Glia, I wanted to maintain that same level of integrity, especially as it pertains to the healthcare system.

We look at how the patient-doctor relationship is so warped from what it used to be. Maybe 50, even 100 years ago and I was like, “How can I put back the agency in the patient’s hands? How can I restore the accountability of the healthcare system and ensure that relationship is fostered and can be one that is encouraged and enriched?” That way, both parties find enjoyment out of the whole experience.

With my application in Glia Health, it revolves around allowing patients and doctors if they choose to use it to diagnose a brain remotely, accurately, effectively and quickly. What that looks like is you have an iPhone or an Android application. You pull it up and it uses computer vision. The same technology that your face ID works off of if you have an iPhone. It will basically judge biomarkers and behaviors in your face to give you a screening of how your internal brain structures are working to give you a brief anatomy lesson. I know not everyone’s not going to have a neuroscience degree, so I’ll try and make it simple.

Dumb it down for the rest of the world here. Come on, now.

I have to re restrain myself a little bit because I could talk about brain health for hours. I love this stuff.

I know. It’s so wonderful because you’re so passionate about it. That’s fun.

You have these twelve highways in your brain. They’re twelve pre-owners and they govern the function everything from shrugging your shoulders to moving your eyebrows up and down as I try to, smiling, all of those things are impacted by the function of these nerves. Even the reflex to like vomit, for instance.

Let’s not talk about that.

My application takes a holistic look at those cranial nerve health and determines whether or not they’re functioning properly. Through that, those inferences that we’re making, we can tell if you had a concussion or a stroke then recommend whether or not you need to go see a doctor. Let me give an example of a story that was told to me by another founder. I met him a few months ago and he said his wife coaches a little league soccer team.

His daughter plays JV soccer for her high school. His daughter, Amanda, was running up the field and collides with a girl named Jessica on the opposing team. Jessica falls to the ground, back to the grass and eyes to the sky. The gentleman’s daughter just hit like a champ. It looked like nothing had happened.

The coaches rush over, the parents rush over and like, “Are these two girls okay?” Especially the one who’s on the ground. They had to medically suspend both girls. They pull them out of the game. They had to go get MRIs, scans, CT scans, go through the whole concussion protocol, and it turns out the girl on the ground had the wind knocked out of her. She was A-okay, but his daughter had a walking concussion.

He was relaying to me, he was like, “I wish you had your product that day on the field because we would’ve known right then and there if the girls were safe to play. The girl who was totally okay, she wouldn’t have had to feel frustrated that she had to go through all this extra testing and get medically suspended. My daughter, I would’ve known immediately to take her to the hospital right then and there.”

Stories like that illustrated the value to me that this is a worthwhile and necessary product that I’m building. It reaffirmed why I was doing what I was doing. It gave me a lot of validation around the idea. Selfishly, I want to be the first remote diagnostic platform in space. Ash Hot are going to be needing remote care. They’re not going to have a hospital right there. I was like, “If I can be that guy providing that service,” that’s my moonshot. That’s Glia Health in a nutshell and why I started it.

It’s interesting that you bring that up because it’s funny. My husband and I were talking about a show and he’s like, “When you wanted to be an FBI agent, you’d have been great at this but you can’t stand the side of blood.” It’s like, “You’re right. I couldn’t have probably been involved in the FBI because of that.” I tell that story not because it’s dumb or whatever. It’s applicable because there are so many items in life that if it could be detected early, you would know what to do. You could have peace. You could feel peace.

I remember when my mom had her TIA. We were going to go play tennis and I was waiting for her. She came. She came to where we were meeting and I asked her why she wasn’t going in and changing into her tennis clothes. She’s like, “What?” She looked so normal. Everything she was doing was so normal then I noticed she started repeating herself. She started to do some things and I am not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. I am probably the worst at any of that stuff, even though I’ve had children. I should be better at it like if you had a baby who fell or something like that.

I remember thinking, “What the heck?” I’d ask her a question, “I don’t think you’re feeling very well,” but she had literally driven home in this condition and didn’t realize she was resetting herself every couple of minutes. I’m like, “Mom, I think you need to call the doctor. Something is wrong,” and I had no idea it would be a TIA at the time, luckily. We would’ve done it fast, just go take her.

Not every stroke presents with slurred speech or a droopy lip. That’s the most common thing that people go, “This person’s having a stroke because they present with that way,” but what if they don’t like in the case of your mother? There are a lot of people like you who have no idea.

I definitely have no idea.

There are a lot of people who, I’ll say this, I think healthcare in particular is one of those industries that a certain level of education is necessary to help educate the public on. Our brain is the most complicated thing in the universe. There are more connections between your neurons and your brain than there are stars in the Milky Way and galaxy. That fact alone should be mind-blowing to anybody.

TRM 28 | Empowering Your People

Empowering Your People: Healthcare is one of those industries where a certain level of education is necessary to help educate the public on how the brain works because our brain is the most complicated thing in the universe.

It can feel a little bit disempowering to talk about empowerment, to not know what’s going on with someone. Especially if you care about or know why something’s wrong or what is happening when your doctor’s having conversations with you. Education is a big part of Glia Health, and why we wanted to empower patients and individuals on the platform and help teach them more about their own body and their own brain and why these things matter because you’re right. That experience is not uncommon. My father had a stroke, so it was something that hit home for me.

That’s why I wanted you to bring up Glia Health because there’s been for a very long time a move to preventative healthcare, population care management and all of that thing. Usually what happens in that is somebody has had an experience, either a family member or something and it could have been prevented, meaning going further or cured earlier. Quality of life is better if you can catch something sooner and that’s what we all want.

We want quality of life. That’s what we want. Your story that led you there is something that resonates with almost anybody who would be reading because we are all affected by somebody or ourselves even that maybe something could have been different and have been caught earlier or understood better.

Sometimes that parent on the soccer field doesn’t even take the kid to get help because they look fine. All of a sudden, you hear this tragedy or somebody doesn’t do a diagnostic test because they don’t want to take the time. I think it’s Justin Belone. He had a mentor that had undiagnosed diabetes. As we start to go through some of that, that’s a great way to introduce your passion into that realm with Glia.

I’m excited about my product for a whole host of reasons. One thing that was particular to me was that we’re now learning that a lot of young childhood injuries, specifically traumatic brain injuries, are now being linked to young adult and early adulthood, depression, anxiety, PTSD and bipolar disorders. How many of us have suffered the mental health struggles that are affecting a lot of people here in today’s world that they might not have had to struggle with had they had the trouble treatment when they were children?

That was a suffering statistic that I learned. I’m not going to bring it up now because I probably will butcher it. At the time, it was that 20% or something like this, 20% of all children in America suffer a traumatic brain injury while playing a sport. They’re linking those TBIs to young adult, mental health disorders. If we can curb that, we will be doing great.

Andrew, we’re going to change a little bit here because that is a sobering statistic, and we want to make sure that’s taken care of for sure. I had no idea, honestly, on that and I learned something a lot of new on all the shows that I have interviewed viewed people on but that, I did not know that but it makes sense.

It makes sense and as we talk about a lot of what happens in revenue and product development stems from that need in the marketplace that you talked about. As we come back a little full circle, a lot of people want to know a little bit about you and your fun side of the fence, and what you do in your free time and what’s your goal in the near future. What are your goals?

Before I touch on that, I did want to bring it up, and it came to my mind about one other way to escape the revenue maze. Whenever you’re building your product, ensure that it’s something that is impactful to those around you. Don’t be necessarily a problem solver and solve whatever problem that you think needs to be solved.

To quote the old adage, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” I’d say be a solution seeker. Find something that matters that needs to be changed to provide value and impact the lives in your community. That could be a SaaS product, a medical product, a better way to travel in a car, who knows? Whatever it is, think of whatever product you’re building. One way to escape the revenue maze is to make sure you’re building something worthwhile that people want that’s going to make an impact. To answer your actual question about what I do in my free time and for fun.

Be a solution seeker. Find something that matters and needs to be changed to really provide value and impact the people in your community.

As you’ve all noticed, Andrew’s brain never stops.

It never does.

It’s always going.

It never stops and if you meet me in person, it’s just who I am.

That’s perfect. No worries.

You told the story about the girl who was trying to work and get some grit singing. I can’t sing very well. I wish I did could do it but I do play guitar. I’m a classically trained pianist and violinist. I grew up from a very young age playing piano, took violin early as well then picked up the cello. I self-taught myself guitar then dabbled in drums, we’ll say. I’m not confident in that skillset yet.

I bet you’re above and beyond in that skillset, but it’s not where you wanted to be, so that’s why.

I appreciate that. Thank you. I love music clearly. I love listening to music, creating music, and producing music. One of my lifelong goals is to record an album. I don’t even care if it does well. I just want to say that I’ve done it, so more for me than anything else.

Classical genre or what?

Probably singer-songwriter. John Mayer is a big inspiration for me. I can make something even remotely like his, I’ll be happy. I can die in peace. I love music then most other young adult males like video games. I’ll play those. I used to compete for a while. I don’t get to do it as much as I like to anymore, for obvious reasons. When I get some time, it’s a good way for me to distress. I’d say those two things primarily.

I’m going to have to say that there we all have it. Andrew never sleeps. He’s part of that group that doesn’t need more than two or three hours of sleep at night that I covet but for some reason don’t have.

It’s great for productivity but some days you’re like, “I’m exhausted and I can’t sleep.” There are benefits to all that.

It’s like a whirlwind. I love the energy. I think it’s amazing. I know that with a lot of people, they’re probably very much drawn to it because it’s like that moth to that fly that energy and excitement about what you’re doing is fun. If you had one mentor, who would say it is?

That I want to have for myself or that I have currently?

You get to decide. You’re diagnosing it too far.

I’ll give you two. The first is a mentor from afar. I don’t know this person personally, but I brought it up earlier. I believe in Gary Vee’s style of leadership, and I’ve modeled a lot of mine after his. I think he leads with empathy and integrity. I strive to be that type of leader in my organization. As far as a leader or a mentor up close, a man named Martin Rowinski. He’s the CEO and Founder of Boardsi, a serial entrepreneur and successful gentleman, but most importantly, he has taught me a lot about how to navigate the difficult situations that I find myself in when running a startup, whether that is in managing a team or finding a new way to accomplish a goal task. He’s very insightful and has a lot of wisdom behind his ears of experience. I attribute a lot of my current success to his mentorship.

TRM 28 | Empowering Your People

Empowering Your People: As a leader, you need to strive to lead with empathy and integrity.

That’s awesome. Everybody who’s been reading, I want you all to know that I am so grateful that you like and follow and share and all those things. This has been another great episode with Andrew and thank you so much, Andrew. Is there one place you can tell the rest of the globe where they can reach you?

We have a website, GliaCare.com but if you want something more personal, you can always reach out to me on LinkedIn. Send me a DM or a comment on one of my posts. I’m pretty good at responding, so if you have a question, I’m happy to help.

He’s an atomic lightning-fast at responding. Trust me like everything else.

It’s a skill that I’ve developed. I wanted to go back, work ethic matters.

That’s awesome. Anyways, thanks again, everybody. Thanks, Andrew, for being on this show.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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About Andrew Denton

Andrew Denton

I’m passionate about building better methods for how we interact with our relative world. Through my education at The University of Texas at Dallas Applied Cognition and Neuroscience masters program, I realized that our current modes of engaging with the healthcare system are outdated. I started Glia Health with the explicit purpose of bridging the gaps in care in the American healthcare system with specific attention to the brain health industry. In a space that is already filled with complexities, I aim to accurately simplify the brain and improve discovery, diagnosing, and treatment of brain health disorders.

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