What's up everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew.

Welcome back to Founders Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the business builder,

the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business,

a team, or a new product. This week on Founders Journal, we're doing things a little differently.

We are dropping a mini-series focused on mental health. I'll talk about my own battle with anxiety,

the effects social media has on our psyche and breakdown my own mental health routines.

I like to call it my mental health stack. That means instead of just one episode, Monday, Wednesday

and Friday, this week we're giving you two. A new show that you won't want to miss, plus a classic

episode you maybe haven't heard before. If you haven't listened to today's classic episode,

go back and check it out. Today I am talking about my love hate relationship with social media

and how I manage that relationship. Let's hop into it.

Social media has been a massive gift in my life. It is a sandbox for me to brainstorm

and test ideas, like career therapy, the new concept that we started on this show recently.

It came from testing the idea on Twitter. Social media is also how I've connected with

amazing people, whether it's hundreds of founder journal listeners or people who ultimately

became morning brew employees or founders that I ended up angel investing in or professional

athletes or artists who I'm now friends with. Social media has also created so many options in my

career, like a place to market my company or market my podcast and allow it to grow. It is like

this compounding asset similar to money that grows in value and importance over time if nurtured

properly. Money gives you financial freedom and an audience that is built on social media gives you

creative and lifestyle freedom. But social media is also a massive curse and at times it has been

the worst thing for my mental health. It is exceptionally good at distracting me from doing the

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