Leaders Unscripted

Conversations with leaders about the challenges they’ve faced and what they’ve learned.

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17: Leading a Startup Through Personal Turmoil with Founder of Merit, Kirk Fernandes

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When the world throws challenges at you from both your business and personal lives, it can be hard to overcome them all.

For leaders, this dilemma scales up immensely - first-time Founder Kirk Fernandes has learned the tools first hand that help to manage the unmanageable.

With three family members sick in the same year, and his business Merit in relative infancy, Kirk’s story is an unmissable tale of resilience, strength in numbers, and honest leadership.

This Episode Covers:

  • The need for networks in employees’ growth
  • Founding a company amid multiple health challenges for family members
  • How to keep the wheels turning whilst allowing time to grieve
  • Bearing humanity to your team
  • The true value of a network
  • Managing self-talk

Episode Highlights:

“You can think of Randy and I - the Co-Founders - as the builder-in-chief and the salesperson-in-chief, or more creatively as my wife puts it, you need a scientist and a storyteller.” - 5:50 - Kirk Fernandes
“The cool thing about being an employee to me, and people don’t use this privilege enough, is that you can quit your job. The inversion for Founders is that you can't quit - either you make this company successful, or you shut it down. So once you lean into those two things, you actually will enjoy both parts better.” - 10:30 - Kirk Fernandes
“During a crisis, as a leader, you just do all the things you should have done. Be super clear, manage your energy, focus on the most important stuff, be honest with your team. I was forced to be more clear, to be more honest, to be more focused, and to ask for help.” - 16:20 - Kirk Fernandes
“Everyone has an internal dialogue. It's really important to acknowledge what you say to yourself. There's something you're saying to yourself that's convincing you to do, or not do something. Debugging that unravels why you’re vulnerable or insecure, or not.” - 24:30 - Kirk Fernandes
“The value of a network is diversification. So you're not dependent on a single person to get you through this, and a therapist is another like node in the network.” - 31:45 - Kirk Fernandes
“Some people’s self-talk is stuff they would never say to other people, which tells you that there's a huge misalignment.” - 36:45 - Kirk Fernandes

Links & References:

Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/

Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/

Kirk Fernandes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkfernandes/

Merit: https://www.get-merit.com/