Apr 23, 2024 · 50m · we-live-to-build
Your Anxiety Might Be Trapped Creative Energy Trying to Escape
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Sean Weisbrot interviews On Top co-founder Julian Torres Gomez to explore the intersection of Eastern philosophy, creative expression, and founder psychology. Together, they discuss how meditation, radical acceptance, and artistic flow provide practical solutions to entrepreneurship-induced burnout, anxiety, and panic attacks.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Sean holds 30.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Sean as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 0.9 Sean pushing back 0.9
speaking balance: gold is Sean, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 46:35 Julian projecting perfectionist expectations onto Sean
Julian repeatedly interrupts Sean to diagnose him with perfectionist mindset ('Expectation. Expectation. I have to be good...'), challenging Sean's stated self-perception.
Hardest push from Sean ▶ 46:40 Sean rejecting the perfectionism assumptionSean firmly rejects Julian's interruption and framing, clarifying that he never held perfectionist expectations about his music or writing and simply enjoyed the urge to create.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 30:45 Julian explaining the Yerkes-Dodson law on anxiety and performanceJulian reframes Sean's understanding of anxiety by introducing psychological frameworks like the Yerkes-Dodson law to explain how radical acceptance and optimal arousal outperform attempts to suppress stress.
Sean holds their own ▶ 41:30 Sean detailing his extensive creative and authorial backgroundSean establishes his own creative depth by recounting how he independently translated contracts, published three practical guidebooks for expats in China, and composed music scores.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Sean as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Sean pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Role of Spirituality and Purpose in Life | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Sean shares his personal background with meditation and compares Western religions with Buddhism, framing it as non-coercive life guidance. Julian articulates how meditation acts as an anchor during existential uncertainty and prevents destructive self-blame. | |
| Julian's Journey from Childhood Fear to Buddhist Philosophy | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Julian describes his childhood fear of death following heart surgery, explaining how Buddhist philosophy aligns with modern quantum physics and helps escape the wheel of suffering (samsara). Sean listens attentively as Julian provides philosophical depth. | |
| Sensory Deprivation and Experiencing Stillness in Daily Practice | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Sean details his strict daily sensory deprivation meditation routine with eye masks and noise isolation, noting how missing one morning caused a severe headache. He prompts Julian on how meditation affects his physiological and mental state. | |
| Flow State, Non-Judgmental Creation, and Team Management | 2 | 7 | 2 | 0 | Julian delivers a comprehensive breakdown of Csikszentmihalyi's flow state, explaining why creation and editing cannot happen simultaneously. He applies this non-judgmental approach to managing startup sales teams by tracking input rather than solely output. | |
| Building Mindful Culture and Open Meditation in Startups | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Sean asks practical questions about how Julian manages open weekly meditation across a remote company of 260 people and handles hiring. Julian explains how promoting a growth mindset prevents burnout and reduces employee turnover. | |
| Host Call to Action: Subscribing to the Podcast | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Mid-roll host call-to-action asking listeners to subscribe, like, and support the channel. | |
| Navigating Founder Pressure, Expectations, and Startup Uncertainty | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Sean asks whether managing large amounts of raised capital and hundreds of employees creates stress. Julian explains that founder anxiety stems from social expectations and advocates adopting a playful, detached attitude toward daily startup turmoil. | |
| Sean's Vulnerability About Founder Burnout and Panic Attacks | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Sean opens up about his ongoing struggle with severe panic attacks and burnout after shutting down his previous startup, contrasting his past fearlessness running 700-person live events with his current vulnerability. | |
| Overcoming Crisis Through Radical Acceptance and Daily Gratitude | 3 | 7 | 2 | 0 | Julian gently challenges Sean's expectation that meditation should be a magic cure, sharing his wife's cancer diagnosis and referencing Viktor Frankl and the Yerkes-Dodson law to demonstrate radical acceptance and optimal arousal. | |
| Reflecting on Gratitude Practices and Comparative Perspectives | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Sean reflects on the paradox of using downward social comparison to practice gratitude, then pivots back to creative output. Julian explains that embracing poor initial creative drafts and creating for oneself unlocks genuine flow in business and art. | |
| Sean's Creative Pursuits in Writing and Making Music | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Sean speaks in detail about writing three survival handbooks for expats in China, composing classical guitar scores, and outlining novels, emphasizing that creative play matters more to him than commercial monetization. | |
| Understanding Anxiety as Trapped Creative Energy and Wu Wei | 4 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Julian proposes that Sean's anxiety is trapped creative energy demanding release and interrupts to suggest Sean struggles with perfectionism. Julian introduces the Taoist concept of Wu Wei, though Sean explicitly pushes back against the assumption of perfectionism. | |
| Core Life Lessons: Relinquishing Perfection and Playing Your Cards | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | In response to Sean's closing question, Julian shares his ultimate life philosophy of letting go of perfection and using a poker analogy to illustrate playing whatever hand life deals with full conviction. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Torres Gomez: Believing outcomes stem solely from effort ignores luck
“I think going through life and thinking that everything you do is solely because of your effort and your presence here is ignoring the rules of nature. It's ignoring how incredibly lucky we are when living this mysterious life, right? So when you go through li…”
Torres Gomez: Purpose is necessary to fulfill the entrepreneurial journey
“Purpose is completely necessary to be able to fulfill the entrepreneurial journey in the correct way. It's not all about money. It's not all about fame. It's about the why you're doing things, and I think that why is hidden behind silence, reflection, ponderin…”
Weisbrot: Buddhism Offers Gentle Suggestions Unlike Dogmatic Western Religions
“I found that it was very different from Western religions because Western religions are generally saying you need to do this or you're going to hell where Buddhism is like, Hey, if you want to live a good life, consider doing that. You don't have to, but try i…”
Torres Gomez: You cannot create and edit work at the same time
“Creation is a messy journey, so you can't create a book and edit it at the same time. You cannot compose a song and produce it at the same time, because you're, that editing and producing are acts of judgment, of fixing things.”
Torres Gomez: Measuring salespeople by inputs rather than outputs reduces frustration
“If you measure salespeople only by their output, how much they're converting and selling, as opposed to how much input they're making, it makes a whole lot of a difference because you teach them to control what they can actually control and let everything else…”
Torres Gomez: Startups Prevent Burnout by Combining Discipline With Outcome Detachment
“And it doesn't mean being lazy and just going to sleep, but actually showing up with discipline, doing whatever the hell they have to do, and then leaving everything to the universe and to life and to the markets so that it can take care of itself. In that way…”
Torres Gomez: Fixed Mindsets and Perfectionism Drive Startup Burnout
“A lot of people that burnout in our company is they truly don't get into that mindset, the growth mindset. But instead, keep themselves into something called the fixed mindset, where they think they need to be perfect, right, all the time, and they think they …”
Torres Gomez: Ontop employees rejected higher-paying jobs for remote flexibility
“Some of my team members have turned down like very, very good opportunities, high paying jobs, just because they say, hey, There's nothing like having time with my family. There's nothing like going to the gym at 11 a.m.”
Torres Gomez: Founder panic stems from perceived external expectations
“And you usually get stressed out or panicked or whatever, because you think society is expecting something from you. Oh my God. What will my investors say? They gave me all this money. They're expecting X or Y. What will my parents say? Or my friends, I have a…”
Torres Gomez: Founders reduce stress by treating startup adversity as a game
“If you take it too personally, and if you play victim, you'll have a shitty time. But if you see it as part of the game, and kind of draw a little bit of fun out of it, the stress goes away, and you enter into the playful state, remove the expectations again”
Weisbrot: Startup-induced panic attacks persist years after shutting down company
“I had anxiety and panic attacks from my last company. It's been almost two years since I shut it down, and I still suffer from those.”
Torres Gomez: The goal is moderating anxiety to optimal levels, not eliminating it
“That's the Yerkes and Dotson law, because the problem really with anxiety and being extremely aroused is at some point it's diminishing returns. So the more anxious you start getting, the less you perform, the less creative you begin to be. So the trick really…”
Weisbrot: Downward Social Comparison Paradoxically Helps Relieve Anxiety
“Typically you tell someone don't compare yourself to others, only compare yourself now to who you were before and who you want to be. But for some reason to make yourself feel better, You'd compare yourself to somebody else and go, well, it's not so bad, right…”
Torres Gomez: Building a business is the exact same process as songwriting
“I see building a business as the exact same process as writing a book or composing a song. It's actually very similar because you need to be able to experiment, try out a lot of stuff to be okay with it sucking while you're making it, right?”
Torres Gomez: Anxiety and panic attacks are often trapped creative energy
“I bet, I mean, it would be very interesting to know this, that anxiety and panic attacks and everything is just trapped energy trying to get out. Because remember, we're energy. At the end of the day, we're energy. And if there's creative energy and ideas that…”