BUILDING THROUGH BURNOUT with ROBBIE BENT

The entrepreneur's mind is constantly juggling family, business, emotions, and expectations. We want to excel at everything, but we end up feeling like we're failing at everything. In this episode, we explore how to build something that serves others while struggling with your own emotional balance - and why the businesses that heal us often become the ones that heal the world.

About Robbie BentRobbie Bent is the founder of Other Ship, a wellness company that combines ice baths, saunas, and guided emotional experiences to help thousands of people process their emotions and build resilience. What started as a simple ice bath in his Toronto backyard has evolved into a movement serving communities across multiple cities, with an accompanying app that has facilitated hundreds of thousands of sessions.

Robbie's journey to wellness entrepreneurship wasn't traditional. After struggling with drugs and alcohol, he moved back to Toronto four years sober, searching for healthy community and connection. Rather than finding an existing solution, he created one - beginning with a free backyard ice bath that anyone could use. This grassroots approach grew organically into a business that now trains dozens of guides and operates multiple physical spaces, all while maintaining its core mission of authentic transformation.

What makes Robbie unique is his radical honesty about the psychological challenges of building a wellness empire while struggling with his own emotional balance. He demonstrates that the most sustainable businesses often emerge from solving our own deepest needs, and that using your own product as medicine during difficult business moments isn't just strategy - it's survival.

Robbie's unique perspective: "I've never been so busy and also needing to be a leader of so many people, plus balance my family life and continuously feeling like I'm not doing excellent at any of the things. I'm not working enough. I'm not a good enough dad. I'm not a good enough partner."

Key Topics Discussed in This Volume:

• The Entrepreneur's Emotional Paradox - Building something that helps others find peace while experiencing internal chaos
• From Personal Healing to Business Model - How solving your own deepest needs creates sustainable businesses
• The Psychology of Anger in Business - Why anger becomes our default when we feel powerless and how to transform it
• Building Community Before Product - Starting with free backyard ice baths and growing organically through authentic connection
• Customer Language as Marketing Gold - Using your first 100 customers' words to describe your product better than any marketing copy
• The Ecosystem Approach - How apps, physical spaces, and content can feed each other for sustainable growth
• Scaling While Maintaining Soul - Balancing creative integrity with business demands and the psychology of creative entrepreneurship
• Using Your Product as Medicine - How founders can access their own healing through the businesses they build

PRACTICAL TAKEAWAYS:Robbie's Community-First Business Framework:

The Backyard Validation Method - Start with free access in your own space, observe who returns repeatedly, and use their language to describe your offering

The Ecosystem Model - Build complementary products where physical spaces inspire digital products, apps fund content, and content promotes spaces

The Guide Training System - Scale personal transformation by training others to facilitate experiences, creating both community and revenue streams