Champion Story 39 | Matthew Helt
Recorded on January 24, 2019
Biography: Matthew Helt is a Growth and Development Coach with Prairiesattva, a development coaching practice that invites CEOs and startup founders to look inward so they can make better decisions and feel authentic in the way they operate. Matthew helps clients uncover their blind spots and inner hurdles that may hold them back from achieving personal and professional harmony.
Prior to becoming a Growth and Development Coach, Matthew was Global Director of Techstars Startup Week, an event that galvanizes and celebrates startup communities, and most recently, the Senior Implementation Consultant on the Techstars Ecosystem Development team. Matthew is also an advocate for mental wellness having struggled with anxiety and OCD in his mid-to late 20s. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska with his wife Janie.
First of all, I am excited and honoured to be doing this interview with you. I was inspired by a lot of the things that we spoke about previously. Thank you for taking the time to do this with me.
Oh, it's my pleasure. It's an honour to be part of the work that you're doing.
Thank you. I know we first got connected by this mutual theme of mental health at Fireside Conference. Both of us were seeking and connecting with other people in our tech industry. But the part I'm fascinated about is understanding more about you as a person.
How did you get here? What's your story?
It's a long story. If you look at the entire journey, I found my way to entrepreneurship and startups through a series of happy accidents. Growing up, I wouldn't say I was that entrepreneurial. I mowed lawns when I was 11, 12 years old, got my first job at 16, but never really had it in my mind that I wanted my own business. I did well in school, growing up.
When I went to college, I couldn't really figure out what my major was going to be. My grandfather was a doctor and in some ways I was anointed as well. Matt's doing well in school, he gets good grades, he's going to be the next doctor. That kind of sat in the back of my head. I thought I should do it, more out of this feeling of obligation. But when I got to college, from day one, it was a complete rejection of that path. I knew it wasn't for me. I had a desire to help people heal, just not from a traditional medical standpoint.
Throughout my journey, I just get to a point, with a lot of things, where I get bored. I would say, "Okay, what's next?" A job opened up as a graphic designer. I kind of lied my way into that job, saying that I could do it. I had a lot of this digital work, but had never really done graphic design. I put a bit of a portfolio together. Ended up getting the job working as a graphic designer for a few years. Hit that point where I was bored and then I decided marketing was my path. I learned as much about marketing as I could. I ended up running an email marketing program for TD Ameritrade. Then I got further down the road and decided I wanted to see what was on the other side of the ad agency world, because so many of the big companies that I was working for started to create in-house agencies. I thought, okay, I'm going to go on the outside, learn what the agencies are all about, so that I can come back and do that within a corporate environment.
Fast forward a few years, I ended up the co-owner of an agency. That was my first dive into entrepreneurship. I was in my mid-30s at that point. Then we had this client who I did some work with. That led to me becoming a co-founder of a startup at the same time that I was running an agency, which was madness. I ended up burning out. That's a whole other story.
But when I hit that wall, I recognized the signs that this wasn't working out for me. After that, I went back to a traditional job, working for an ad agency, and then I ended up building community. Part of my volunteer work was with an organization called the DO Lecturers out of Wales. We ended up bringing that event to the States. It's like a mini version of TED, a very intimate conference. Through that, I was building community and I loved that community. I loved being a part of it. I loved fostering its growth.
I ended up in Boulder applying for a job. While there, I met a guy who is the founder of Startup Weekend. His name's Andrew Hyde. We got to chatting about the volunteer work that I was doing and he asked me if I wanted to be a part of a new thing that he had built called Startup Week. I ended up working with him at UP Global on Startup Week. Then in June of 2015 Up Global was acquired by Techstars. I continued doing the same work with Techstars that I was doing at Up Global.
Currently, I'm the Program Director of Techstars Startup Week. I have worked with 56 different cities all around the world to put on a week-long event about coaching local entrepreneurs, who are community builders themselves, through everything that they need to know to put on this event. We coach them through the playbook, best practices, and whatever they need so that they can put on the best event possible for their community in order to build a startup community.
In your work and experience, what excites you in terms of being able to serve founders?
First and foremost, I find founders to be fascinating people. They're typically super sharp and well-versed in a variety of different topics. They can talk about just about anything. There is usually a high level of energy, which is interesting because I'm an introvert and I wouldn't say that I'm high energy, but I like being around those types of people.
Founders are people who need support and help. It's not like at a big corporation where there's tons of internal resources. These are individuals who are out there on their own, often heads down, working crazy hours with very little tools or resources. I think that technology and entrepreneurship are one of the greatest vehicles for changing the conditions on this planet and conditions for human beings.
A lot of that innovation and just ... I don't know any other word than innovation, but it's all being driven by those founders. They're coming from different disciplines, so they might have a science background. They might have a purely tech background. They are athletes. They have something that they want to solve. To watch these people solve real problems and transform the world, that's not hyperbole, they are changing the world. To be some part of that and support their entrepreneurial journey, that's why I do it.
Prior to our interview, one of the things that moved me was what you're doing now. You shared with me about how we can support founders differently. Not only was I moved by the work that you're doing in that area, but I was also really moved by the why.
Would it be okay if you could share with us about that?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The way I came to the mental health space is through my own mental health crisis. Starting from a very young age there were symptoms of mental illness. At the time, nobody really knew what to call it. At the root there was a tremendous amount of anxiety, as well as some trauma that occurred because of my parents' divorce, but it wasn't talked about. This was back in the late 70s, early 80s, you were just labeled a shy kid. That label kind of followed me throughout my entire childhood, so I never really got any help because it wasn't seen as a problem. It was just like, “Oh he's shy.”
Then when I hit puberty, around 12-13 years old. I'm diagnosed with OCD and generalized anxiety disorder. The anxiety piece had already been there, but what really kicked in at that time was the OCD. I started developing rituals like hand washing. Or, if I got out of the shower and I didn't do it just right I'd have to get back in the shower and redo it otherwise, my brain was telling me, some catastrophic event was going to happen. I didn't know that was a problem, I just thought that's the way my brain works. I didn't know if anybody else was doing anything like this. I was scared to tell people.
I hit my crisis point when I was 25. I had organized a bunch of people from work to go skydiving. One of my motivations was that I was terribly afraid of heights. I thought that if I could conquer skydiving and become really good at it, then I would get over my fear of heights. It actually backfired. When I was doing my first jump, it was a static line jump. You go through two days of training and you jump solo. When you jump out of the plane it pulls your shute open for you and then you just have to try to steer yourself down the ground. Part of this involved hanging on the bottom of the wing of the plane. At that point, I had a panic attack.
I'm falling through the air and in that moment of panic I can't breathe, my heart is jumping out of my chest, and I forget where I'm at. All I remember is seeing this plane fly away from me and then the canopy of the parachute opening above my head. Luckily, I had a radio on my shoulder and there was a person on the ground, and they helped steer me back to the landing zone. If it wasn't for them I would have ended up probably a couple of miles away from the landing zone having no idea who I was or where I was. In that moment of panic I forgot all of my training, so I forgot to flare. Flaring means you get 30-40 feet above the ground and you flare the parachute so it slows your descent. Well, I forgot to do that and I slammed into the ground. I laid there and took an assessment of my body, “Okay at least you're on the ground now, you're okay.” I started coming back to my senses. The panic attack started to decrease and I was able to get up and walk away.
For almost two years after this event, I suffered from panic attacks. At first, it would be one attack a week. Then it became one attack a day. Then multiple attacks a day. At the same time, I began having very intense intrusive thoughts. Most of these thoughts were violent in nature, and I am not a violent person. This caused me to have even more anxiety and increased the severity of my panic attacks.
Fast-forward to Thursday, February 28th, 2002, in the evening, my symptoms were so bad that I said, "Just go to bed. Try to sleep." If I could sleep I could ignore it. Very early in the evening I laid down in bed, tried to go to sleep and I heard two men having a conversation in my living room. I knew that there was nobody there, but I could hear them and that's when I really knew I was in trouble. I did manage to fall asleep. I woke up the next day, this would be Friday, March 1st, and went to work when I knew I shouldn't go to work, but I was just ignoring all of the warning signs. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good decision and I almost immediately left work, got in my car, and drove myself to the hospital emergency room.
I was admitted and met with the doctors immediately. They evaluated me for a few hours. Then, for the first time in my life, I had a diagnosis. They looked at me and said, "Things are going to be fine. We're going to get you stable. Here's what you have. It’s OCD and generalized anxiety disorder." Just having that diagnosis, somebody looking at me and saying, "We know what's wrong with you and we can help," was an enormous relief. It was the first time in a couple of years that I had hope.
They gave me some medication and I went to sleep that night. I woke up the next day on March 2nd. It was my birthday, 27 years old, and I was a completely different person. It was the first time in a couple of years that I didn't have a panic attack. I felt good. I remember thinking, as I was laying there, “Is this what normal people feel like?” If so, I was very encouraged. Within four days, I was released from the hospital. I remember after being released - mind you I'm not normally a talkative person, but I couldn't shut up for a month. I wanted to talk. I felt pure joy. I didn't know that was possible.
What really touched me about your share is just the honesty of it, and how open you were about sharing those details. I really do think that makes a difference.
Thank you. The details absolutely matter. I could sugar coat this, but I don't think that's what people need. I share all of those really personal and intimate details about it, first to show them that you can have really terrible symptoms and still be out in the world and thriving. But the other aspect of it is feeling alone. The number one thing I don't want people to do is get as bad as I did. That's because I suffered alone, I suffered in silence. I hid everything that I was going through and didn't feel like there was anyone to talk to that would understand.
One of the things I end my talks with is to tell the audience, “If you're feeling anything at all, get help now. Don't ignore it. Don't push it off. Don't say, ‘Well I'll deal with that in a month. I've got too much work to do.’" The best thing you can do as a founder is get the help you need because otherwise your business is going to suffer. If that's the only motivation, “I got to make this business work, it's all about my startup,” then the most important thing that you can do is get the help you need now and not push it off, because your business will suffer if you put this off.
Moving to the last question I have for you. I know that you're doing absolutely amazing work in this space of mental health, especially in terms of supporting people who are neurodiverse. What can we all do as a community to move mental health forward?
It's a great question, one that I think about each and every day. First and foremost, we need to remove the stigma. The only way we remove the stigma is if we're all open to what's happening. That means even if you're not going through something, keep your eye out for those around you where you suspect something's happening. Create space to listen to that person. Make it known that you will not judge, that you're committed to helping them get help if that's what they need. Because part of suffering in silence is thinking that I will be judged and that could potentially ruin my career, ruin my chance of raising any money. We need to get rid of that and get rid of it immediately. As a community… and I think in the startup world more than any other industry out there… as a community, we can lead on this issue, but first there has to be that awareness.
A lot of times when I talk about this topic, I'll say I suffer from mental illness, but what I've found in my journey is that it's not all suffering. There are moments where it hurts and it's unpleasant and that might be the suffering. The vast majority of time though, I'm thriving. But, it took a lot of work. It's the therapy. It's also mindfulness. I think that's another thing that we really need to explore is just sitting, being quiet, taking on meditation. No matter what your spiritual or religious background, meditation is what really gave me a lot of insight into what I was dealing with. Until you observe your thoughts, you don't really understand how your brain works. Through part of my healing process I was able to step back, do a lot of meditation.
Thank you so much for the experiences that you shared and the wisdom that came with it. I felt really honored today to hear your story. I know that there are other people whose lives you're going to touch from this.
Thank you for all that you're doing. I'm excited.
It's my pleasure. I'm just thrilled that I get to be a part of this work, share my story, and that hopefully it resonates with some people and helps move things forward. Thank you so much for having me.