Leo's breaking point came during what should have been exciting—his previous company had both fundraising momentum and an acquisition opportunity. Instead of celebration, the dual pressure created chaos. "We were working 24/7 relentlessly, really," Leo explains. "We were making not good decisions anymore. We were just running after things instead of making informed decisions." Despite being someone who "never gets sick," Leo found himself constantly ill and exhausted. This taught him there's "definitely another side of entrepreneurship" most founders don't discuss.

What separated Leo from founders who quit after repeated setbacks was genuine obsession with the mission. Working in metabolic health for people with Type 1 diabetes, his team built "literally so many different features, solutions, approaches" that failed. But user feedback kept them going: "They wrote us on a weekly basis: 'This is so cool that someone is approaching this problem, I need this.'" When they tested their product, users had "sparkling eyes" and said "this is exactly what I was looking for." Leo learned that mission-driven work creates resilience through genuine impact: "We really changed their lives, and experiencing this drove us even further."

Leo's relationship with entrepreneurial fear traces back to a German fairy tale his mother read him repeatedly—about a man who "went out to learn to fear." This instilled curiosity about fear rather than avoidance: "Something regarding getting to know my fear and trying to understand my fear and always crossing the borders and realizing how can I interact with my fear so I can understand it and work with it." Fear became a learning opportunity. "I enjoy leaning into fear," Leo explains, "and that's probably why I'm still an entrepreneur."

Leo's transformation began with "habits for sustainable health." His morning routine is sacred: wake at 6:30 AM, immediate calisthenics workout on a yoga mat, meditation for 10-15 minutes before touching his phone, then alternating yoga and abs workouts. He practices intermittent fasting until 12 PM and ends each day with evening meditation. The key insight: "I need two hours a day for my workout routine and cooking and good eating. Everything else is manageable to adapt, but those two hours I don't skip them—I'm super clear about not skipping them."

Many founders feel guilty taking time for self-care when stakeholders need attention. Leo flipped this thinking: "Entrepreneurship is a long-term game with long-term people, and one of the long-term people is you. If you don't take care of you, you will not be able to play the long-term game." He realized stakeholders are interested in his ability to sustain performance over years, not months. "They will be okay if something is a bit off or later than normally if they know I don't stress myself out in a way that I know how to be resilient and can do the long-term game."

Leo's most counterintuitive insight involves how he built his routines. "I call my habits today sustainable and healthy, but establishing them was neither healthy nor sustainable," he admits. During the initial year, he was "completely hardcore"—waking up at 6:30 AM even after going to bed at 2 AM, never compromising on workouts. "I needed to be that radical and be like 'no matter what happens, I will not skip my routine' for about a year." This extreme discipline created the foundation for sustainable habits later. "It was sacrificing half a year or a year to make sure the next five to six years are sustainable."

Leo showed me what it means to be doing the right things when they need to get done, and what’s the immediate positive outcome of it. I’m my younger years as a founder, I knew so many of the things I now live every day, but the reality was that it took me soo much more time to implement them. I didn’t establish a morning routine until after my severe panic attacks that forced me to get into meditation. I didn’t implement a high-performance diet until after my body collapsed during Covid. The reason why I took so long? I didn’t believe in what I was reading. It seemed too easy. My belief system around success was so corrupted and it included so much “pain” in it, I couldn’t let go of it until I was forced to. Leo didn’t waste so much time, he noticed the early signs immediately and he acted on them. Please, don’t do my mistake!!