Mental Health in The Funding Game

Technology, finance, healthcare, sales, and marketing have all been reported to have the highest levels of employee stress and mental health issues. Eager, driven executives of this industry work around the clock to close deals, finance equipment, and conjur fresh new ideas. While alternative finance can be deemed the industry that never sleeps, the people pushing it forward should remember not to push themselves too hard. Prioritizing one’s mental health can often be found at the bottom of one’s checklist but should be the first thing assessed before starting the day.

“It is critical that we start really focusing in on understanding that mental health is part of every everything we do, every part of who we are, how we see ourselves, how we interact with others, how willing we are to take risks, how willing we are to be ambitious, and how forgiving we are of ourselves when we make mistakes,” said Nancy Robles, President at Eastern Funding LLC.

Success is an adrenaline rush and can be addicting if not managed properly. Jessica Garcia, CEO at Simplified Funding Solutions, at one point struggled to find a balance between her work and home life, leaving her feeling burnt out more days than some. She believed the more hours put in working on a deal the faster results she’d attain in return. Finding ways to regroup and reassess, she created her own methods within the workplace to cater to her mental health.

“I started doing like a lot of self-care within the workplace,” said Garcia. “So what I mean by that, as opposed to sitting at my desk and being glued to a hard phone on a conference call for an hour, I would just put it on my cell phone through my air pods, walk around, grab a stress ball, sightseeing, have meditation music in the background at a very low volume to help stimulate. I would turn on some candles to help with the aromatherapy and I noticed once I started doing those things, I was able to pace myself more and I was also happier…”

Meanwhile, For Nancy Robles, she’s not just the president of a company but also a full-time mother of five. The pressure of performing as a woman of color in this industry while juggling motherhood are constantly clashing and finding themselves at odds with one another. But as of late, Robles has learned to emphasize mental health into her daily routine.

“Over the past several years, I’ve prioritized my mental health and as I have prioritized my mental health that comes with a lot of self-care, a lot of healing,” said Robles. “I’m a big advocate for therapy, everybody should go to therapy. I’ve been going to therapy for seven years.”

Unlike Robles and Garcia, finding a work/home life balance has its own unique twist for Sonia Alvelo whose fiancée is also her partner at work. And after 15 long years together they’ve managed to find stability between the two.

“Communication is big for us in everything that we do, in order to be better,” said Alvelo, CEO at Latin Financial. Administering daily mental health exercises in one’s routine can make all the difference but having the support of one’s employer can make an even bigger one.

Incorporating necessary steps and open communication in the workforce can help a team or staff to not feel as if they are being hammered by their 9 to 5. On this, Jessica Garcia has noticed companies moving in the right direction, implementing more group activities and break spaces for women especially as they are growing in number in the finance sector.

“We’re getting that softer, feminine touch, in regard to ‘it’s okay to take a day off if you’re over it, it’s okay to go home early if you’re just burnt out,’” said Garcia. “’It’s okay to ask for help if you’re overwhelmed and need assistance from the team to complete a task. It’s okay to be vulnerable, it’s okay to be human,’ we’re not robots, we’re not machines. And I think in the past two years, especially after the pandemic, we’re starting to see that synergy of being there for each other.”

Alvelo recognizes the significance mental health has within a company as a CEO. Weekly discussions with her team throughout the years has helped for a happy community life in her office.

“I have a responsibility as a CEO and I have a big one on top of that because I’m a Latina CEO. I have to bring things to the table that other companies may not talk about it or may not talk about enough.”

Success starts within oneself to achieve it anywhere else. In order to put your best foot forward in this industry take time, check in, and evaluate your mental health.

“One of the critical pillars of having any success in any type of career,” said Robles, “if you own your own company, if you want any successes, you want to have your relationships in your family, your relationship with yourself, which is the most important one, you really have to address mental health first.”

National Funding on Growing its Team to Prepare for the Bull Run of 2022

“We’re about people and platforms,” President of National Funding Joe Gaudio said. “PP: People and platforms, not PPP, that’s my little acronym.”

National Funding is back and looking to hire fresh talent, rebuilding their team after the pandemic rolled through the California market.

“Whether it was California or if we resided in another state, it impacted small business owners throughout the country,” Gaudio said. “Small businesses took a big impact. A significant number of customers requested temporary relief loan modifications. And that’s how the PPP program helped bridge that gap for a lot of small business owners, and get them through the pandemic.”

Gaudio said that National Funding was affected like every peer firm was by the pullback, explaining that their normal customer was looking for PPP funding, not a bridge loan. National rolled back their team by about 50%, and rolled back funding for several months. After the worst of it had passed by the end of the summer, National was back, strictly pulling the reigns but still going. Now they are hiring in every department, and Gaudio said nothing is stopping a gigantic 2022 rebound of demand. Benjamin Flowers as CTO and Luca Marseglia to the Data Science Division are just the beginning.

“We’re rescaling, we’re hiring quite a bit this year, and so these two hires are part of our rescaling: rebuilding not only the leadership team, but the rest of the organization,” Gaudio said. “We’re always looking for new high performers and contributors that that fit into our culture. Even pre-pandemic: if you’re an A-player, you’re a high performer, and you can add value, we will take a look at you, we will find room for you.”

National believes the coming year will unleash tremendous pent-up demand, Gaudio said. In the short term, the firm plans to offer intermediate financing to help SMBs handle the bumps on the way. Though there will be some supply chain, labor, and schooling/childcare problems next year, it will still be big, and National has been preparing, working at the office the whole way through.

“That’ll still continue to put somewhat of a cap on the recovery for small business owners, but we expect a big year in 2022,” Gaudio said. “We’ve embraced the hybrid model for certain functions, [but] sales and operations, underwriting: we’re 100% back in the office, and we’ve been like that since last July. It’s important to our culture to be together… I just continue to be very bullish about the future, and I think it’ll be exciting to see the continued evolution of our industry and the platforms.”