Balancing Business, Burnout, and a Bold Life with Andrea Lopez

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Emotional Man podcast Today. I am just tickled to have Andrea Lopez with us. She is the CEO of Zeven, an entertainment company. Andrea, welcome to the show. Go ahead and say hello and start talking to us about your company and how it started, its origin and how you came to be the CEO.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Thanks so much, seth, for the invitation and for having this podcast connecting us as entrepreneurs into this amazing world of being only successful in family and also in business life. Well, zeven is an entertainment company. It was born a decade ago. It's not my first startup. I have already worked in other startups and companies but I had put like my life and soul into developing this concept. That is really different. This company has three subdivisions One is an events company, the other one is a travel agency and the other one is an agency, so they're both connected with the entertainment world.

Speaker 2: 1:22

And how do I become the CEO? That's a really interesting question, because we started with a group of friends connecting the ideas that we're having about this interesting activities in the sustainability environment, because I also had worked with philanthropic and volunteering as one of my passions And then I found myself a little bit bored. I gotta say It was a little bit bored and it was only a word only by suits And sometimes it wasn't so fun. I wanted to bring that to this world. I want to become also a big core. So that's why we are developing the company in an environment that it can be 90% female-run venture.

Speaker 2: 2:18

That is one of our missions. that is connected with gender equality. The second, that is carbon neutral, so we are working with people from all over the world on an online basis like UME. I'm right now here sitting down in Ecuador, south America, and you're in the US, so it's amazing how we're connecting. And the third it's the most sustainable way of working. There's, like this, business plans that need to be based as a long-term basis, not only as a short-term. So that's our three main missions that we're trying to accomplish And because we want to seven, be a company, to be as a force of good, to bring not only entertainment to people and also have a good message behind it.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I love the idea of seven, especially the purpose that you have behind it, your goals, kind of the responsibility you have towards, not only towards your employees, but just everyone around you. One of the questions I always like starting off with when I'm talking with entrepreneurs and business owners and founders is that there's a lot of different companies out there who have a very similar purpose in providing sustainability, where you could find a lot of these working for another company. So why is it that you chose to start your own company versus just joining and getting a job in another company that may have similar values?

Speaker 2: 3:57

Amazing, i got to say I had worked in other companies and I advise other companies through one of the divisions of my company. I do that because I believe so much in the message to be spread out And I also believe that if you have an amazing idea and you can share to me and that can be scalable in other countries or can be put together in another community, we can still work together. So I started my own company because I wanted to make a business plan in a different kind of way And I also want to give women opportunities to this world. I found that there's a huge yonder gap nowadays that we need to balance, and that's why it was one of my main reasons I started this company. It was inspired by one of my mentors that is my aunt, and she's a huge, successful woman and she gives a job to more than 300 people right now. So I was inspired by how she was connecting her business with destroying this gender gap. So that's why I started my own company.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Incredible. You talked about your aunt and I know that you have a lot of very important women in your life. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about your family and kind of what your family structure looks like as you're balancing your company right now?

Speaker 2: 5:32

Thanks. So that is one of the most inspiring questions to me because my family for me it's very important. I was raised with really amazing, powerful women. In my family. There was my grandmother, my mother, my aunt that were always working and were always providing in the household. I also have an amazing man that had been my mentors, that had been there for me. My cousin is an amazing entrepreneur and politician. But I had this passion connection with these women because since I was little I saw how they were introducing themselves into the world with this impactive way of seeing things And also with this kind of loving way of gentleness and softness that I believe there's missing right now in the world.

Speaker 2: 6:32

So my family wasn't a traditional family. You call it like father, mother, children kind of figure. It was more like at this amazing, powerful movement raising these kids in this household. And since we were little kids they were really amazing. We're colleagues, as I say, but they managed to also take the time to be with their kids and have fun with them And that's how I was raised. I saw my aunt not just to be with one of her kids. She has only one kid. That is my cousin. She was always with a million children around her And it was really funny because when she was going out everyone was like how does this woman can handle more than 10 kids in a day? Everyone was like some people might think it's weird because she was only the mother of a kid, but how does this woman? it's every day in her home with so many kids And I discovered that if she could do it, it's because she was doing it in a loving kind of way.

Speaker 1: 7:53

So you were an only child and currently right now are you in any kind of relationships or do you have children?

Speaker 2: 7:59

No, i don't have children. I, as I told you, i'm working in myself to be in that relationship that I envision to myself. Right now I'm focusing in, since the pandemic was really hard for the business and for us, and I stop a lot of things in the business field. I just path through a huge burnout that it's the worst thing that ever happened, i believe, to a person that loves to work, as myself. I needed to stop my different business And also I needed to rest, because I feel that rest is one of the most important things in your life. You can't just go and work every single day as a race. You need to see life more like as a marathon.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Yeah, it really is. Burning the candle at both ends is or grinding, working 100 hours in a week. whatever it may look like, it's not sustainable for the long term.

Speaker 2: 9:07

No, it's not. It's not because you wake up and if you're always thinking about working, then you forget that you had a life too.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Yeah, talk to me about what your family relationships are the most important to you right now. So, as you mentioned, you're really focused on working yourself, on healing after the pandemic, resting from this burnout. Where, when you're looking for family connection, who do you go to?

Speaker 2: 9:35

I want to dive into that family word. I believe so much in the power of that word because, as I told you, I was raised as an only child And I found myself feeling that family is not only the ones that are blood connected by you. It can be your friends, your colleagues, your mentors, the people that surround you in a daily kind of basis, And you feel energized by them. And with that concept behind, I can tell you that this marathon that I'm doing with my life has been discovering those souls in this amazing journey that I'm with. So I found my family in people that are with me in projects. I found my family in the ones that are living behind, like in the same community I'm in. I found my family in my philanthropic work, And that is the way that I see family. That is the way I feel that we, as people, need to see the people that surround us, not only just the blood connected. We can feel those family values in those other people that are surrounded by us.

Speaker 1: 11:11

And for a lot of us, the concept of the nuclear family the mother, the father, their children is often the focus for a lot of the world. But in previous generations that concept was much more expansive. When someone said family, it was multi-generational Grandparents, uncles, aunts, children, cousins, grandchildren And you're broadening this idea of the family concept to these really meaningful relationships you have in your community at work, and so one of the main ideas in this podcast is discovering how business leaders face the challenges that come from balancing the demands that work requires with the necessity of meaningful connection with family. So, in your specific situation, as you are in this more expansive idea of family, what have been some of the challenges you have faced between the draw of working a lot or being present in your company versus working on your family relationships?

Speaker 2: 12:34

I believe that it's important to understand and have mutual respect for each other. That's one of the main reasons I'm working in myself to understand and be more respectful with the necessities of the people that I believe in my family. I believe that everyone has different life experience and they're built differently. For example, i always put this example that every month, a woman gets her period and go through excruciating pain and hormonal imbalance. So in this case, it's important for men to understand and respect the challenges women is going through. At the same time, women should also understand that men go through their own set of challenges. So to gather or sum it up those ideas, it's important to have respect regardless of the gender and understand that we are here in this world to be a team, to be a team together to create opportunities for each other. And if we're dealing with this kind of situation, if we see those situations with a loving kind of way, it's easier for us to connect.

Speaker 1: 13:59

Yeah, and have you ever found that your work priorities ever make that difficult?

Speaker 2: 14:07

Yes, it has been really hard. That's why I told you I passed through a huge burnout because, as I was raised in a developing country, there are so necessities that need to be filled And sometimes me as a person, and a lot of people that can relate to me that are still single, want to have this emotional stability and this financial security to do it before you enter into a relationship, because you're afraid of what you're bringing out to the other person or what that other person is bringing out to you. I don't believe in the thing that people say about just entering into a relationship without knowing anything and just do it because it's part of the war and you have a relationship and you die. I don't believe in that. I believe that if you want to have a meaningful, deeply loving relationship, first you have to work in yourself. You have to be balancing that kind of way so that you can create a team, because I feel that having a family is creating a team. I had seen that in my life since I was a little kid.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Yeah, there's a really interesting concept that you'll only ever be as happy in a relationship as you can be happy as a single individual. So if you can't have a good relationship with yourself when you're alone, chances are you're not going to be able to have a really good relationship with someone when you're married.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Yes, exactly In that kind of situation I can't relate with. Some of my millennial friends right now are prioritizing their mental health and their financial stability to having a relationship, because there's this sensation of entering into a relationship that you're not going to put something possibly in it or you're going to give back to the world too. I believe that there's a lot of things we can do together if we are two human beings, heal together and create a home together. But if we are two human beings like crushing in our lives and doesn't have a clue what we're going to do, and then we enter into that relationship and try to make it work, it's going to be a catastrophe. And that's why I believe there are so many divorces, so many bad information around the family or around relationships.

Speaker 2: 17:03

I don't think it's because of their relationship. I think because there are people that enter into a relationship without healing and knowing exactly how their life looks like, how their values, how their principles, how their aspirations in life. They don't talk about it, they just enter for the emotional level Oh, i don't want to be alone, i want to be with someone else, to come for me, to support me. But they haven't given first to themselves. They haven't come for themselves. First They wanted to extract that juice from the other person And then the other person exactly that person gives you that juice.

Speaker 2: 17:51

But what happens if that person has through a situation that he or she cannot give you that then in it stops and it tends to be toxic. It's like a hamster wheel. So if they know that before they enter into a relationship, i believe it's better, because you're really this amazing person, this loving this, possibly this person that knows that if that person it's not going to give you that juice, you're going to be okay, you're going to be okay, you raise a really interesting point here about this idea of perhaps you shouldn't enter a relationship till you are ready to be able to give to the relationship, versus just looking to get into a relationship just so you can have someone else meet your needs.

Speaker 1: 18:48

And I think there's also a parallel concept that some people who are looking to start a business may tell themselves I don't want to start a business till I know I'm ready to start a business. So you kind of have these two parallel ideas where I don't want to enter a relationship until I'm ready And I don't want to start a business till I'm ready. So how would you know when you're ready to start a business or when you're ready to enter a relationship?

Speaker 2: 19:23

That's an amazing question. I talk with my friends always. They are asking me that because I love to answer in the best and structure kind of way and I had seen this in my family. In my family there's like this side of the family that has this amazing, possibly loving, successful life, because I believe in a successful life, not only in a successful family, a successful business, i believe in success as a whole And there's the other side that it's like toxic, toxic and black. The one is the white and this one is the black. So I have both sides in my family And that's how I can compare it and analyze the fact.

Speaker 2: 20:22

The question that you just solved How do we just go into the idea of having a relationship or go and execute the idea of having a business? We're not always 100% ready, but we as humans have this intuition. So if we have, in the business field, an idea and we make a business plan, prepare ourselves, have this kind of 80% 70% structure, we must know that there's going to be a 30% or 40%, that it's not going to be perfect. So we also have to know that we're going to have a lot of challenges in the business field. There's a lot of people that don't have the idea that the business can crash tomorrow because of other pandemic. A lot of things can happen. But if we have this knowledge or structure before putting the idea into consideration to the customers, i think that we can do it. We just have to jump, have to do it Knowing that there's going to be a risk, because there's always a risk. You don't know 100% sure that your business is going to be successful. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow to me or to you. I don't have my own, okay, And I also see the other side of relationships.

Speaker 2: 21:57

Like me, as a woman, i have prioritized my education, my business, because I want to be an example for my children. I want to know that one day, if I had kids, that their mom has prepared really hard to be in the position that she wants to be, that she passed like she went to the university or she educated herself, because not everyone has the opportunity to go to college or to the university. So I want my kids to be able to know that you have opportunities and you can choose between them, but you got to sit down, pause and choose. That is one of the things that I really want my family to know that I take my time, i put all my effort and commitment to choose well before I jump into having that family, because then I feel that they're going to be more grateful.

Speaker 1: 23:07

This idea of preparing. Well, it's so interesting. We will apply all of these really important principles for a business that we don't think to apply to our family. So, for example, most successful startups and business owners and founders don't start a company without a business plan. Yet so often we will enter a relationship without a relationship plan. It's a strategic plan for the relationship because we've never. There's not very many people out there that will say here are the challenges that you need to have tools for in order to have a successful family. Most of what we do for our families is based on what we saw growing up, what we see in the world, and so how would you respond to this question of what, as a single person, what kind of questions? if you were approaching starting a family like you would start a company, what would be some of the things that you would ask yourself so that you have a strategic plan to start a family like you would to start a company?

Speaker 2: 24:26

That's great, because we, as you say, we don't ask those questions to ourselves. We just don't. We just go to a relationship by the emotion, no by analyzing why am I going into this relationship? Is this person going to bring something positively to me, or is there something that I'm attracted to in a low kind of way Because there's something that I haven't healed from myself, that I see there and I just want that Because it happens. There's like this behavior. It's like a chocolate You want that chocolate, but perhaps you're in a diet And you can't have right now that chocolate because you're committed to have a better, healthy, fitness life and you need to put a chocolate behind. You know you're going to have it soon, but not in that particular time. That's how I see things right now.

Speaker 2: 25:28

I wasn't like this before. Like I was like some people would hear this and they would say, no, she's so structured, so organized, she just organized her life and her business and her business plan perfect. And her no, it doesn't. It. Like life doesn't work that way. I believe that you just pass through a lot of different situations or steps in your life And then you go, you like, stop and go to a point that you say or I take the same road as I was taking before, or I stop, reflect, structure myself and then put myself again into the life, but with a more, as I told you, more loving, appreciated, more peaceful kind of way and more like thoughtful. Because not everyone just have the experience of stop and pause And ideally that happened a lot of us, that happened to us in pandemic. If we haven't learned from that, we choose the other road.

Speaker 1: 26:47

The ability to really reflect on where you're at, what your results have been and do you need to make a strategic change, is critical both in your business as well as in your personal life.

Speaker 2: 27:02

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 27:04

Now talking about your personal life. you've mentioned several times about this period of burnout. Now, this is something that business owners and parents experience quite a lot. Now, a business owner can experience burnout when they're unable to, they're working too much, their health is poor, they're not sleeping, they're constantly in distress. And parents also experience burnout where they're just giving. maybe they're in a season of life when their children need a lot, they're not sleeping, or in the city, you're not married or you don't have children, but you still have a lot of emotional and mental loads that you're carrying. Can you share your experiences to? what brought on the burnout? How did you know you were in burnout And how were you able to step away to rest? So three questions What brought on the burnout in the first place? do you think I did to?

Speaker 2: 28:11

breathe before? Before answering that question, one of the things that really impacted me was the pandemic situation. I believe that I can describe myself as an empath. When I was going out, i saw so many people in the roads just like crashing because of the disease, so many loving, amazing people that passed away because of the disease. And then it was the financial stability. Of course, you can't help some, but you need to prioritize, and my brain was working twice in a day, not just once, like twice. It was so hard working to build solutions on my community so I can help people that needed from me. And then my mother got the disease too. So it was like a really awful situation when I was trying to save my mother's life, save my company, save my life and save others' life.

Speaker 2: 29:21

So then it was like a really intense, a really intense moment in the world, not only. I believe it's not only for me, for the audience and the people that are hearing us. And then I just like getting to this position of Superman of trying to solve all the mess around me, because I needed to solve the health of my family, that my family was in, i needed to solve the bad financial situation, my company was in And I also, as I told you, i love to give back to the community And I wanted to also be involved in solving some very painful situations that were going through around me. And then I got into this place that it wasn't sustainable Not only for me, for the other people around, since I was so intense and so driven to solve the problems in a Like I don't believe that it was the best way to do it And that it crashed. Everything crashes when you're moving in that faster kind of way.

Speaker 2: 30:40

And then it was like the worst And I just stopped. I just stopped. I just decided to stop, decided to don't do anything, and I talked to my family, i talked to my colleagues and the ones that were around me, the words advising me about this, and I just told them I'm going to stop And I'm not going to be doing more. I'm going to worry only three hours a day. I only need to rest and work in a better dose. And then I'm in this position that I'm recovering myself from that. But it's not easy. It's not easy. I'm not 100% recovered. I can tell you.

Speaker 1: 31:28

We're nearing the end of our time here. I just want to ask one question that I think could be really beneficial to those who are listening, and is that a lot of people don't recognize they're in burnout until their health is in serious jeopardy, when their health is really low. What helped you recognize that you needed to slow down? What helped you realize that you needed to rest?

Speaker 2: 31:56

First of all, i get into this huge inner depression. I'm a really energized person, so I have a lot of energy, and then, when I was in burnout, i don't even could type anything in the computer. I was so suffocated by everyone around me. I had a hard time with my relationships because I was just draining that energy bad behaviors. And then my emotional behavior wasn't the same as I was before. So that's how I started connecting the dots and then saying no, i need to stop. This is not good for me or for the people that are around me. I need to stop, i need to heal this, and that's the role I'm going into right now.

Speaker 1: 32:45

I think it's often. the irony is that so many of us work so hard to give to others And there's a certain point that working more does more to hurt others than to help them. There's the economic principle the law of diminishing returns that eventually, the more you are giving and the more you're working, it starts to hurt others and hurt yourself more than you're helping with anyone. And it seems like you saw that and you had the wisdom to reflect and restructure, as you said.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Exactly, and I believe that is one of the best things you can do for yourself and for the people that are around you.

Speaker 1: 33:33

I always like to end our sessions with asking a final question, andrea, and that is regarding family success. It's very easy for us to see and recognize when our company is successful. We can look at net profit, we can look at growth metrics, we can look at whether or not we're living our company values. But what about in your personal family life, especially in your current situation where you have this family community? How do you know if your family relationships are successful?

Speaker 2: 34:13

Because of communication. I believe so much in the power of communication. There's different kinds of communication And we as humans don't communicate the same way. Men don't communicate the same way, men as women and in friends, family, etc. And is one of the key and the most important things in a relationship, because if you know how your partner or your mom, your dad, your friend express their gratitude, you will know that sometimes it's not going to be as a word or as a present or as an action. That person likes to write new things And that is how you know he or she loves you. Or perhaps you have this nicer kind of way of hugging with the person you love And the person have, because of their healing process, they don't know how to express their words, but they give this amazing hugs And that is how you know that person loves you. So you need to know those things, because then everyone will communicate the same.

Speaker 1: 35:25

I love this idea of perhaps success in family relationships is built on this idea of effective communicating in a way that the person needs to be communicated with. It seems like communication really is this foundational concept in any successful relationship.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Yes, but it's a general.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Yeah, general, Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:49

How is your way of communication, your loving way of communication You like to give to the people you love?

Speaker 1: 35:56

So my wife really appreciates service, and so if I want to do something that's meaningful for her, i try to do something that makes her day easier. She's not. She appreciates gifts, she appreciates love notes, but what she really likes is when I do something that makes her day easier, and so that's how I show love to my wife.

Speaker 2: 36:24

What is yours? What do you love that people do for you?

Speaker 1: 36:28

I really enjoy when people will play with me. I really enjoy having fun and having doing games, and so my wife. one of the things that she does to connect with me is that we'll play a game together board games or whatever it may be, laughing together and going out on dates.

Speaker 2: 36:44

You're invited to one of the seven experiences soon. Okay, i would love that, perfect, i'm looking forward for that. Then that's when perhaps it's going to be in the Galapagos Islands.

Speaker 1: 36:59

Ooh, that would be wonderful, i'll have to find a babysitter for my nine children.

Speaker 2: 37:04

No worry, we'll make it happen.

Speaker 1: 37:06

Yeah, everyone, this has been Andrea Lopez, ceo of Zeven. We are so grateful for your time and for the wisdom and just the personal experience you've shared with us today.

Speaker 2: 37:19

Thank you so much, Steph. We're making this world a better place just by giving out your message. Bye.