Megan Del Borello, founder of We Are Emersyn

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Brainwaves. Hear the world differently, bringing community mental health to you, raising awareness and challenging stigma. Tune in to 3CR community radio, Wednesdays at 5pm. Melbourne's drive time radio program featuring community organizations, powerful stories and information. Find us@brainwaves.org.au proudly sponsored by Wellways Australia.

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I would like to begin by paying my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which I am coming to you from today. Land where it brainwaves we tell our stories, and land where the traditional custodians have told their stories for many, many years before us and continue to tell their stories. I would like to pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners who are listening today.

Flic Manning 1:18

Hello, and welcome to Brainwaves 3CR, 855 AM on the dial, your app or via the online stream. My name is Flic Manning. I'm your host, and today I'm joined by Megan Del Borello. Megan is the founder of We Are Emersyn, an acceleration platform for female founders. Megan is a speaker, mentor and presenter, marketer and strategist and mum of two young kids, who understands the challenges of that female entrepreneurs face. Megan, welcome to the show.

Megan Del Borello 1:45

Thanks for having me, absolute pleasure.

Flic Manning 1:48

Now, Megan, I always start the show with the same question, because I think everyone's got a unique answer to this one. So I'm going to throw it over to you. What does the term mental health mean to you?

Megan Del Borello 1:59

Mental health means to me, I guess, all around wellness. So I think it's really important that you know your mindset is right, your I guess your physical body is right, and that all actually ties in for me personally to my overall mental health. I think it means, I think it means everything, like it encapsulates everything to me. I know that's a very like hard answer, but it is. It's a hard I find it a hard question as well. Yeah, mental health means that everything is balanced as well as it can be, and then I'm running at my very best.

Flic Manning 2:52

Yeah, I love that answer. I think it's just that whole holistic aspect of not segregating it to just thinking, Oh, it's only what's actually happening in my brain, but encompassing the fact that it relates to everything, and that everything's going to relate to your mental health. So I really feel that answer, and that's pretty much how I would have answered it. So yes, I think it's a good one. Put you in the hot seat there to get you started. So have you experienced a time, I guess, in your own personal life, when mental health has been a concern for you, and if so, how did that actually present, in terms of, like, the symptoms, the experience of it?

Megan Del Borello 3:26

Quite a few times, actually. The first was after I had my first child, and that was, you know, all the hormones from giving birth, but also because I was facing my beloved pop had just died, and I was facing, I guess, gender discrimination in my workplace that I had, you know, gone on maternity leave for, and it was all taking a toll. And so when I was trying to deal with a new baby that I didn't know what to do with and sleepless nights. I had all this external pressure, and for probably about a year, I felt really lost. I didn't know who I was. I would cry easily. Things that normally wouldn't upset me would upset me. I found it difficult to sleep, and I couldn't handle everyday things, and you that year, that period was was really, really tough time. 

And so it was kind of, you know, not just the the baby thing. I don't think it wasn't baby blues or anything like that. It was just all the external stuff on top of having to deal with a newborn, and the way that I slowly got out of that was I went and started seeing a therapist to try and talk through it and to give me some strategies of coping, and got back into exercise. For me, exercise is probably the number one thing that I need to do to make sure. All that my, you know, my mindset and my mental health is stable enough to function that always, I guess, gives me the endorphins to keep going. And so that was probably the first time. 

The second time was not gonna [?tie 10] kids all the time, and distress all the males. But, you know, the second time was sort of after we had our second child, and the pressure of going back into my business then that I didn't really want to do it again, sort of external pressures, relationship issues as well, and it all just compounded. And when I look back, I realised that I wasn't doing the things I needed to do to make sure that I was okay. I stopped doing my Asian Science, I stopped going and talking to people, stop doing the strategies that I had learned, and then it just all came tumbling down big time.

Flic Manning 6:06

And it's amazing how easy it is in the moment of, I guess, crisis or trauma or being stuck in that whirlwind of all those mixed emotions and experiences to actually drop the things that we know actually work for us. And I find that's a very common thing that people sort of say, I just stopped doing all of the things that gave me that kind of joy or that kind of balance. And very often in therapy, it seems like a lot of the time, counsellors or psychologists will say, Well, what were you doing last time you felt good? And then you start listing off all of the things, like I was exercising, I was meditating, or whatever it is, and then people go, Oh, yeah, I have stopped doing all of those things. 

So at what point do you feel like you was there like an aha moment for you, where you thought, I've got to pick up those strategies again and start doing it? Or did it just something like naturally start happening for you?

Megan Del Borello 6:58

No, it was, it was an aha moment. And it was when I had gone back and seen nurse, therapist, the council that I was seeing, and, you know, she'd asked those exact questions. And in that moment, I thought, Okay, I'm not my best self at the moment, and I had been given strategies to do, and I had completely dropped, and I thought, I've not focusing on myself, and I need to put myself back at the top of the list, because when I do that, then everything else around me kind of thrice as well. 

So, you know, I needed to feel I needed to fill my cup up and it you there was a big turning point, probably, oh, a year and a half or so ago, when I was quite unwell, and I didn't actually realise how sick I was from a condition I had, and I physically couldn't get out of it because of it. And I thought, Oh, hang on. And then I started to get you those thoughts again, of What am I doing, getting you... upset with myself, sort of distancing myself from friends and family, and just getting a bit more clarity on, Okay, this is what's happening. I need to stop and I need to put those things back in place. So it was just about, I guess, internal awareness.

Flic Manning 8:21

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's something that we continue to practice throughout life. It's not a one and done thing, because, as you sort of brought up before, there's a change in identity that comes with things like motherhood or starting a new business or changing career, anything really. We go through different phases throughout our life, and that's when you kind of got to have a check in almost with yourself, and that self-awareness continues to grow through those periods. So thank you for highlighting that. I think it's such an important thing for people to know that it's an ongoing process, not a one and done type situation. Now you run a women's accelerator program - what has that actually taught you about the role of mental health in business?

Megan Del Borello 9:00

That is paramount. So if a founder, or female founder, has the right mindset, they, you know, around and everything is working well, they're exercising their mental health is is good that has a really positive impact on their business. And when it's not, and it's founders, especially, I find it's the mindset they have, this mindset of they've got a fear of failure, or as they progress, a fear of success, or they get so stuck they don't know what to do, that it kind of freezes them. Then they tend to not progress in their business, and it becomes this vicious cycle, because they start to think, I'm not good enough. I don't really know what I'm doing. Why was I doing this? 

And so then we see the founders that actually have turned their mindset around, or they're really positive on what they're doing. They've got that self-belief. They're the ones. That actually progress further and faster in their business. So mindset is a really big factor in what we talk about with the founders as well, and we put quite a lot of emphasis on it, making sure that, you know, it's not just working out what you to do this is each week we make sure that they look and go, Have I got enough self care scheduled in this week? If I don't, will that change next week? 

Because sometimes we're really busy, and, you know, the scales tip in one direction, and we can't help that. But when that happens for too long, that's when it becomes a problem. So we make sure that they can identify, Okay, well, next week, I actually have extra time. I need to take a step back and look after myself, because, you know, as as we tell them that if you're not sound mind, body, soul, nothing else matters.

Flic Manning 10:54

Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's so refreshing to hear you talk about this in the context of accelerator programs, because it's something that really often just gets tacked on or really left out of the equation altogether. And I think for women in particular, given we often have additional stresses in our life that or expectations that we may be carrying around parental care or looking after the kids or our elderly family or whatever it may be, also chronic conditions, is very common in women as well. And so it's kind of funny that a lot of these programs don't consider those things. 

So it's actually really, really good that you do that. And I appreciate that, Megan, you've experienced some women's health conditions, and you mentioned this earlier in the show. What was the effect of that most recent experience, the diagnosis and treatment, on your mental wellbeing?

Megan Del Borello 11:42

Wow, it was intense. So a couple of years ago, I started experiencing, you know, a lot of inflammation and pain and everything in my body, and I ignored it for six months, and finally went to the doctor, and his first words to me were, Want to know why you left it so long. And I was like, Okay, I kind of just ignored it, switched it off, put it to the side, didn't put myself first again. And I was like, What am I doing? And it just progressively got worse. So I had adenomyosis and a debilitating form of it, and I eventually had surgery. 

But the year before I had surgery, my symptoms worsened to the point where I was in so much pain that I would just cry or and it's something I was doing if someone was next to me, I would grab their arms so tight and squeeze them, or, you know, if I was holding something, I'd accident like, throb at all because I was in all this pain. And so I then started to cancel a lot of meetings. I would reschedule things. I would cancel at the last minute. And so then I started to think of people are going to think I'm a flake, that I'm not really serious about what I'm doing unprofessional. I wouldn't be able to go to a lot of events. I couldn't do things with my kids. Some days I would be in bed for two days. I couldn't exercise. 

And that's my big you know, on the one of the things on top of my Thrive list is I have to physically move, and I was in too much pain even to stretch. And so that took a massive impact, or took an impact on myself, but also my family too, because my husband had to step up and do all the other things the children didn't really understand why mommy was not going with them to the park, or couldn't go to the birthday dinner, or, you know, even Christmas day I had to miss and I couldn't understand wine. So then that sort of fit into my thoughts of not doing a really good job at anything here. And during that time, you know, I was getting frustrated because my business wasn't progressing like I wanted it to, either because I physically couldn't. 

And so having something like that again, I kind of didn't tell people. And I wish I had reached out to people earlier, because it was only probably about six weeks before I had surgery, but I actually started telling people, and that's when, you know, my advisory team stepped in, friends I knew stepped in, or mentors we had stepped in and took over things and helped me through that time. And I kind of look back and think, I'm not sure why I didn't maybe I thought I could, you know, do it all, but post surgery, it kind of took a little bit as well to get over, not so much the surgery, but looking back through that time and thinking there's like, a whole year that I pretty much lost because of what I went through, and I'm never going to get that time back or so in [?Salu], not rebuilding so much with the kids. 

But then, you know, it still makes me sort of upset. Sometimes I think about missing Christmas with them, my daughter, my daughter. Knows now sort of what I was I was going through, because she's old enough to understand. But it did. It had a massive impact on the way, especially my mindset, the way that I looked at things. And it took a little bit of work to get back into the rhythm of business and the rhythm of life and starting to feel healthy again.

Flic Manning 15:17

That's so interesting, because when I speak to a lot of other other other women that experience chronic illnesses or chronic pain conditions or disabilities. It's a very similar theme to the story, and one of my very good friends, Michelle Irving, once put it as and again, I'm paraphrasing, because she she speaks so beautifully, but essentially along the lines that we have this story that we're told when we're growing up about what illness is and that it's very temporary. You know, we get sick for a few days, we take a couple of days off, we recover. 

And when we find ourselves in a situation where the illness becomes significantly larger than that, the story in our head doesn't make sense anymore, and there's this grappling then with that sort of idea of identity, and we feel like we've failed because we're not matching the story that we got told about what illness should be temporary. We shouldn't have to drop everything and change everything, and it shouldn't affect everybody long term. So it's just interesting to kind of hear that that parallel in in your experience, in the sense of how, as you were going through that you start thinking all of that self talk about, you know, oh gosh, I'm really not doing a very good job. And there's that sort of sensation of failure in all of that. 

But it's... also good that you raise adenomyosis, because I know it's a condition that actually really gets talked about. I mean, I remember a doctor telling me once that it's the, what did she call it, the the ugly cousin of endometriosis that nobody wants to talk about. And so that, in itself, must have been quite challenging to find appropriate care throughout that period for you.

Megan Del Borello 16:46

Yeah, it really was. And everything I had read, they didn't talk about the debilitating side of it, and I was almost, I think, embarrassed to talk to some people about it. And it's always sort of after I had surgery that I've spoken to some more women who they had a same condition, had saying surgery, or they say they have adenosis as well. And, you know, I said to them, don't listen to what you get told about it, because it gets four point. Read is debilitating. There's not my story. Search done on it. Everything I read, you know, said I should be able to manage the symptoms of it. 

And so when I would get my really debilitating symptoms, I thought, Oh, is there something else wrong? Or am I making this up, or is it not as serious as I think it is? And it was actually quite hard to find a gynecologist or surgeon that I could get in to see because they didn't prioritize it. And you know, the first sort of course of treatment they give you was to go on the pill, which made me cry for three weeks. And it was my husband who said, This needs to stop, because it has really affected you. This is not your normal self. You're crying a lot. You need to go back to the doctor and push to go see a specialist now. And so he saw the changes that were happening myself. 

And when I did see my fantastic gynecologist, firstly, he said to other people who have done absolutely nothing but just terrorize, you know, all of your hormones and it's not going to help any of your pain. And so when he said to me, you need surgery, that's your option. It really validated, you know, my internal thoughts on their condition, but there isn't. There's not enough research understanding about it. And for me, I had the condition for quite some time. So my daughter, who's turning 11 next month, my little story for 32 weeks, and it was because progesterone left my body. And then my son, he was an IVF failure I had sort of five years later, because I had secondary facility. 

No one could have told me the reason I'm like when I was PFID, made pregnant with him, I had a massive bleed with him, and went to the hospital again. Baby was fine. They couldn't tell me why. When I went to the specialist, he connected all the dots and said it was adenoviruses. And he said, you can see in some of your scans that you've gone through when you've had your IVF, when you've had you know you were pregnant, you can see it, but because people aren't trained to pick it up, or they're not looking for it, it was completely ignored. And he said, And that was the reason why your daughter came early. You couldn't take her full term. You couldn't conceive naturally. 

And it really made me quite angry that there wasn't this holistic care. And my gynecologist is a male too, and he was even saying that the holistic care there is none, and it's extremely frustrating when he sees women come to him with these conditions that have had it for quite some time, and mine was over a decade, and that no-one has connected the dots, and no-one has actually looked further into it as well.

Flic Manning 19:38

Yeah, the term Validation really strikes me. I think that's such a, again, really common theme in these sorts of chronic illnesses, that we lack that validation, and that really causes us to start in, to internalise, like, What is wrong with me? Why can't I handle it? Shouldn't I be able to tough this out more, especially when you are seeing all of those things that say the symptoms should be manageable. But you know. So what some person's version of manageable and what the reality is are two very different things, and what we see in a textbook versus the lived experience are also two very different things. 

I'm so glad that you didn't, in the end, find somebody that was able to validate it, put those pieces together and really help you to process, in a way, all those experiences that you'd had over such a long period of time. And for any women listening today that are experiencing reproductive issues or pain, trust your body, trust your instinct, and those around you, like your family members, who may be stepping in and saying you really need to get this checked, take it seriously, and as much as you can continue to advocate for your care, even if that means seeing multiple people, it's always worth it to prioritize your wellbeing. 

Megan, how have your mental health experiences informed your approach to life, business and relationships?

Megan Del Borello  20:53

Do you know, it's built resilience. And probably something I don't talk about a lot, and I didn't mention, was when I was younger, I went through a lot of trauma from my mother, and you know, that carried on in my early 20s up to my 30s, until I actually made the decision to completely cut her out of my life. And so that was a really, really dark period of time. And again, it was my husband who said to me, you need to go and see someone to talk through this. What is happening. It was having a massive impact on everyone around us, that they were experiencing it as well. 

But those types of experience have actually built resilience in me, and also I don't take crap now as well. If someone's going to be toxic or they're not going to be veto, they're not going to be good to be in my life or an experience that is not going to serve me in any way, then I have that ability to go, nope, not happening, not doing it, we're going to move on. So I think it does give you more self awareness or internal awareness to go you don't have to put up with these things. You have been through enough. The most important person in your life is yourself. You were the one responsible for your happiness. You're not responsible for other people's happiness or joy in their life. And if you can work on yourself and you're happy with yourself, then you know other things around you will actually thrive. 

But I always say that it has built so much resilience in me, maybe to a point where it's not so good like thee sometimes, but it has helped me a lot in business, and it's also helped me understand that, you know what, some people aren't going to like me. I don't care. That's not my problem. As long as my friends, my family aren't kind to them, you know, they like me, then that is, that's all good. But, yeah, I always go back to it's it's built resilience and the understanding that it is something that constantly needs to be worked on, too, and there are factors that I have to work on might be unique to somebody else. I always call it my Thrive list. There's five things on my Thrive list, and I need to do those things each week to be at my optimum.

Flic Manning 23:14

Yeah. I love that idea of resilience. It's sort of like a muscle, you know, the more we flex it, the stronger it gets, the more likely we are to use it. But those kinds of experiences often sort of, you know, form a big part of how we approach different things, and it's amazing how transferable that is, whether it's, you know, business, personal life with your kids, whatever it be, but also, thank you for for sharing that the vulnerability of your experience with your mother. I think that's something a lot of people still are quite afraid to talk about, that they may be experiencing issues within their own, you know, family unit, and it's good to be reminded that, particularly once we come into adulthood, we are in control of who we spend time with and what we do and what we allow into our environment. 

But you do need to build that resilience to be able to kind of, you know, make those decisions?

Megan Del Borello 24:01

Yeah, sure. You really do - and I think as a parent, it has really put at the forefront for me my kids mental health and wellness as well, and strategies, especially for my daughter, being 11, going into that tween heading into the teenage stage as well, making sure that she has some coping strategies too, that she's able to talk to people that aren't just myself, that she can trust about things, and to really build her self confidence in herself. So if she does for some reason, you know, someone says something to her, or the bullying in things starts that we can talk about it. 

We can help her deal with those strategies that, yeah, just really made me, I guess, more aware of, you know, so when I was growing up, it wasn't talked about at all, but becoming really aware of what my kids need too, which is completely different to what I need as a person.

Flic Manning 24:55

Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah, I think it's just such a good a good point. And... also just a reminder too, that I guess whatever experiences that we go through, the people around us end up watching, observing, learning from us, whether we say it outright, directly or not, or whether it's just from observation or or that mirroring concept, particularly with children, everyone's picking up on what you're putting down. And so I think to some extent, when we think that we can hold it all in and control all of it and not let any of it out, people are still perceiving that there's something going on. 

So sometimes, when you you work that resilience muscle, you're able to then transfer that information across in a really pragmatic and useful way to the people around you, and it becomes a learning experience for everybody. So it sort of makes everybody more understanding, a bit more compassionate and empathetic. And who doesn't want a world that's more passionate, empathetic and compassionate than the one we've currently got right? Just to finish off, Megan for our last question, because we are rapidly burning through our time, as I knew that we would. I just wanted to know you mentioned your Thrive list, so I guess that could be also termed as like non negotiables. 

What are some of those other things other than exercise on that list for you?

Megan Del Borello 26:05

So it's interesting, because at the top of my Thrive list is actually my work time in my business, and not this is not a list of the most important things in my life, but it's things that I need to do to feel my very best, and, you know, to be at my optimum. And so I do need a certain amount of time to work on my business, because that's, you know, my brain. Then obviously, yes, exercise, sleep is really important to me, and spending time with the kids, family and then sort of friends and and having fun too. So they're the things that I need to be able to do each week to really feel my best. 

And it's not... I don't believe in balance at all, because if we had to have everything in balance, if I was spending five hours a day working, I'd have to spend five hours exercising and so forth. So I kind of like put it in quadrants and so to feel my best, I need to exercise at least four times a week for 30 minutes. I need to work on my business 20 hours a week. I need to not do any work on the weekends and spend that time with my family. Or I need to have one one time, especially with my my daughter as well, every week, just us. 

So it's working out, sort of, what, how much time that I need to allocate to each as well. And it took me a little bit to get to but it's, you know, going back to the founders that we work with, I always say to them, when you're planning out your calendar, your time, you must put in your family time and your personal commitments first, and work everything else around that's the most important thing to me, because no one gets to their deathbed and goes, Gosh, I wish I worked more. And so I always say, with all the personal commitments, put them in and then you work around those.

Flic Manning 27:59

Such great advice, because I think most people probably do it the other way around. They re-prioritise work or their business, and then they're looking at the end of the week and going, Oh gosh, where can I fit an hour in for this? And I guess this week I'm not exercising because I just I can't fit it in with everything else. But flipping that on its head and doing it in reverse makes, actually, so much more sense if you're thinking about having a quality of life rather than just burning through toward towards some kind of, you know, goal or a thing that you're trying to achieve, you're actually going to get there in one piece, if you do it the way that you're suggesting, as opposed to getting there burnt out or not getting there at all. 

So I really appreciate that advice. I think it's, you know, really useful for anybody, regardless of where they're studying, having a business, have children, whatever it is, definitely flip it on its head. Megan, thank you so much for sharing everything with us today. I think so much that you shared today has great value. And I think a lot of women in particular will be going, Oh, this makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being on the show.

Megan Del Borello 28:56

Thanks for having me, absolute pleasure.

Flic Manning 28:58

Now, of course, anyone at home, wherever you are driving home today listening to this episode if you'd like to know a bit more about Megan's work at We Are Emersyn, or to put an application in for the program, head to We Are Emersyn dot com - and as always, as I finish off the show, I'd like to remind you that your mental health is of equal importance to your physical health. So if you're yet to do, so let's align them now together today with a nice, big inhale, a deep exhale, and remember to shower yourself in the kindness that you so easily give to others. I look forward to joining you next time on Brainwaves,

3CR ID 29:34

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