Founder's Story - They Coach Billionaires, CEOs, and Politicians—Here’s What Every Powerful Leader Gets Wrong | Ep 243 with Drs. Louis and Denise Joseph Co-Founders of Open Sea Institute

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Drs. Louis and Denise Joseph reveal the hidden psychological struggles of high performers—and why even the most successful people quietly suffer. From coaching billionaires and public figures to forming a groundbreaking partnership with Rolls-Royce, the Josephs share how Open Sea Institute is redefining peak performance through deep mental rewiring, personal transformation, and ethical leadership. Key Discussion Points: The two categories of elite suffering—and why success often hides emptiness Why powerful people feel trapped in the lives they built The concept of “superior human functioning” and how to achieve it without leaving your life behind The underestimated mental cost of startup leadership and fundraising How Open Sea Institute is bridging psychology and business performance The real reason suicide rates are rising—especially among high-performing men Social media, AI, and the psychological future of humanity Could Dr. Louis Joseph run for president? The surprising answer Takeaways: Even the most powerful people need help reclaiming joy, purpose, and inner peace Business transformation starts with mental transformation at the top Self-mastery and emotional intelligence are the new elite currencies Mental health isn’t a weakness—it’s the next frontier of leadership Closing Thoughts:Open Sea Institute isn’t just coaching individuals—they’re reprogramming the mental infrastructure of global power. This episode will leave you questioning how we define success, and what it truly means to lead. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Great to have you both on today. And I know that you've worked with CEOs, politicians. You've worked with elite athletes, the influential people. What is it that you see brings them in to your office? Well, Daniel, it's a myriad of things. But I think, you know, at the core of it, it falls into two buckets. One is what you would typically consider more traditional psychological challenges. So things like anxiety, depression, marital discord, so on and so forth.

The other bucket that tends to afflict our clients is it's not necessarily an affliction, but a desire to be better, to do better, kind of an irking suspicion that, you know what, I know I'm at the top of my game or close to it, but I think there's more. And so people kind of come in for that further growth or transformation to the next level. A sort of deep longing for satisfaction and joy

that is not manifested in, material items, even a sense of freedom. You know, you reach a certain level, it's what we've noticed. And you sort of get trapped in your role, no matter how wonderful, you get trapped in your possessions, and you wake up one day and you find yourself perhaps living a life that doesn't feel entirely authentic. And so, again, like Lewis said, we have the pathology, which is the disease states, and then we have these people who, you know, we take into a state known as superior human functioning. And in most cultures, historically, that state resembles enlightenment.

But the way we do it, we don't require monasticism, cloistering yourself from everyday life. We don't believe that's very useful for the world. And everything we do here, we do in service of the world and the betterment of it. We bring these people into this sort of enlightenment semi-mode. and we unleash them upon the world. And not only are they happier, but all the people they influenced, the idea is for them to be happier because their leaders are better. Furthermore, there's kind of an organizational level that people tend to come in with as well.

Executive leadership has really shown a true and very kind of flattering appreciation. I think for our ability to help them, you know, bridge the gap between mental wellness and business outcomes. You know, Daniel, we're in an age of information and financialization where every bean is counted. And what we offer corporations on the corporate level is not just advocacy of a more efficient bean counting mechanism or a workforce layoff plan, et cetera, but a means to transform themselves from the top down. And I'd have to say it's in a very ethical, innovative, and powerful way to enhance productivity and wellness in the workplace. You know, psychology is part and parcel of nearly all aspects of business.

I mean, you think about a business and what part of a business doesn't involve human thought that went into it. And so businesses attempt to kind of mitigate human behavioral risk and biases through various processes and protocols and standards. But such constructs are only products of a human creator. And we believe that given this fact, there is a massive under emphasis upon ethically optimizing such psychology in the business world. You know, we developed a product that we believe effectively addresses this inefficiency

and are being recognized for our skill and efforts at doing so. And, you know, we were talking before about, you know, the Rolls Royce partnership and whatnot. And I think that speaks to the quality of the product that we're able to deliver. So Dr. Lewis Joseph, I'm curious, what are some things that people can do? And when you help them, how do you unlock this? Because I would say there's so many people I know at this high level. It's very stressful. It's anxious. They're working 60, 70 hours, 100 hours a week. They're traveling all over the place. It seems, you know, everybody wants to be somewhere until when they're in it and they realize just how hard it can be on that person.

So what can enable somebody when they're there to unlock this potential and not have to feel that way? You know, you make you a great point, Daniel. I mean, some people, they're in it, you know, and if you look at the rates of mental illness within, say, I mean, you talk to startup founders all day walk. You're looking at the limited research that's been done. You're talking 60, 70 percent are afflicted with a mental illness at some point during that startup phase.

And you think about the magnitude of pressure that they're under. The concept of a funding runway, wow, here's $100 million make this work. And you got 12 months to do it. A lot of times founders in our experience, they believe in an idea or a product and a concept and really want to develop it. But then when they get to the thick of it, they realize, oh my gosh, there is a lot of other business functions that are present. You know, think about fundraising. Think about investor relations. You know, think about public relations. Think about marketing, advertising, sales. You know, our home, our kind of original home was

finance, right? And so, you know, a lot of the people we, you know, work with, you maybe, maybe started off. They were kind of investors, kind of the nerdy types, very cerebral. You know, they had an investment thesis. They saw something that, you know, the rest of the market did it. And, okay, it's a great idea. But then there's a lot of architecture that needs to be wrapped around that to ultimately lead to success. and it's kind of going through that process that I think people tend to hit a wall,

many people hit a wall or feel it at least. And, you know, what we've done is kind of looked at, okay, well, and it almost broken it down into certain particular modules, right? There's a fundraising module, an investor relations module, a building a successful leadership team model, module of sorts. and kind of there's certain predictable psychological challenges that come up with in each one of those aspects of the business. I'm using finance as an example because, you know, it's where we start it.

And so, you know, you have these people 60, 70 hours a week, they're working, they're stressed. They might be doing well, but they feel the stress or they might actually not be doing so well. They might feel depressed. They might feel anxious, you know, so on and so forth. And that, you know, we're there to either catch them at the beginning and usher them on the way up. And some more proactive people that are kind of more kind of attuned to mental wellness and mental health use us as kind of more of a prophylactic approach. Others are in trouble. And then that's when they walk in the door.

And in terms of the process of, you know, I think you asked, how do we do it? In reference to the idea of superior human functioning, it's the idea of inducing a transcendent state in a person, but not necessarily through, you know, a traditional means thereby meditation, something like that. It's through a constant process of self-exploration and self-mastery that occurs on a regular basis. and again, can be done in the confines of your actual life. You don't need to go anywhere to do it. When you look back to your journeys, you started about six years ago to this journey and you have this partnership with Rolls-Royce. So many things have happened.

Walk me through the journey and some of the highlights of how this has been for you. So the idea for OpenC Institute came from my experience in high-dollar fundraising. And I worked primarily with billionaires, high-dollar political, fundraising for certain interests. And when you work with people at this level and you fundraise, you interact with them personally. You go out to eat with them. You travel with them. You go to events with them. You sort of become part of their circle. And what I noticed, having not come from a billionaire background, is that they have a lot of the same problems or all of the same problems as anyone else.

So that really made an impact on me. And, you know, years later, just following Lewis's journey through, you know, the corporate world of health care, both Lewis and I constantly experienced a lot of disillusion with the corporatization and financialization of health care in general and mental health. and when I put these two things together, it seemed inevitable that, you know, we should do something about it. I come from a medical family, and so I've been in medicine my entire life. I would shadow my father everywhere from the gross anatomy lab to the pathology lab. And so, you know, this really has been a lifelong journey for me, and it just seemed like the two of us really had the wherewithal to do something about it.

And furthermore, you know, given the clientele that we work with, there is kind of an added benefit that we thought would be inevitable. And if you kind of work with people who are kind of the influential, as you would say, Daniel, we realize that if you can target that group and help somebody who touches countless, numbers of lives throughout society, through their business dealings, political dealings, interactions with society, so on and so forth, that there would be a trickle-down effect. And that was also kind of, you know, when we were thinking about, you know, putting together this organization almost an added, a huge added benefit in a sense that it almost becomes a movement at that point. Like, okay, this is a way to impact society. You know, we're a powerful person who might be struggling or whatnot and grow them, transform them in an ethical way.

And then, lo and behold, and we're right, they start to interact with their, you know, employees, their spheres of influence in a much more and much healthier way. Makes sense. Yeah. You help somebody who then can help many, many people. You you've now impacted what potentially could be millions, if not billions of people. Exactly. And that's what I learned from the high dollar fundraising, just how money works, how money travels, and money talks. So like Lewis said, you know, we wanted to impact society. I come from a political science, legal background, Lewis from a public health background. It just seems like a project, you know, we could take on together.

When you look at all this people that you've come in contact with and these very high, level, influential people, is there a common trait that they have that you think gets them to where they are in their life? In my experience, it's an ability to have a laser focus or something, our goal, and to tolerate failure. Failure doesn't feel good, but they push on. I think that would be the most common trait that we, positive trait that we see. I like that. The laser focus, a lot of people, it's shiny object syndrome. They're moving from thing to thing and they lose focus on something.

But I could see, I look back, you know, I think about all these people that I've spoken to. You are right. They have that laser focus and the ability to push on through those dark times, which most of us give up. So I'm curious, Dr. Lewis, I've read. somewhere that people were asking if there's a potential for you to run for president. What are your thoughts there? It is something that, I guess, it had been, I never imagined it for myself in any way, shape or form before it was mentioned to me, you know, several times around Paul Beach

during the tumultuous 2024 election cycle that we all remember so clearly. But as Denise has said, numerous times in public and in private, you know, OpenC Institute is nonpartisan to our core. You know, we serve leaders from all sides of all aisles. Again, it's not something I ever thought about, but I believe the skills I would bring to the office would be singular and unique in U.S. history. You know, we've never before had a leader with my particular set of professional perspectives. Now, there have been three U.S. presidents that have been physicians, that being William Harrison, James Garfield, and I believe Benjamin Harrison, but we've never had a psychiatrist. I think the particular skill set of a healer who exists to interpret and reflect the condition of those he serves would bring a remarkable advantage to really a country and world and turmoil right now. You know, Open Sea Institute, you know, we heal powerful people for the betterment of the world.

Now, not to say we don't hold certain beliefs sacred, you know, we do hold beliefs true. One being that mental illness has a devastating effect on the individual and society at large. And mental wellness does the opposite. And I think most people in the world would agree with me on that, on either side of the aisle, no matter what country they're from. And I think given my proficiency and successfully shepherding leaders within the various industries from many different cultures, political leanings, what have you, to a better place, I think that I would be uniquely equipped. As far as we are concerned, mental health is the appropriate bedrock upon which society should be built. And we communicate this belief in everything we do. Thank you for sharing.

I mean, I personally have gone through struggles since I was a teenager when it comes to mental health. I had so many therapists and a lot of stuff didn't work. They tried medication and, you know, that's tough when you're a teenager until I found someone who really, really impacted my life. Even to this day, I still remember what he taught me and all the things, all the learnings that I had since then. I keep hearing many times you had mentioned since last year, 2024, issues of men and young men when it comes to mental health. I hear suicide rates are up and there's a lot of struggling and I don't know if people understand what to even do. What are your thoughts on this? Very good question, Daniel.

This is a societal problem, you know. I think with, you know, the opioid epidemic that was getting a lot of attention pre-COVID, it still gets a certain amount of attention. We've kind of moved towards setting up various pieces of infrastructure to help those that are suffering. You know, it's a multifaceted approach. You know, when you ask about suicide, in particular males, Men tend to have a higher rate of suicide, and that's been pretty consistent over time.

But what we're also seeing is the trend over time, which suicides are increasing, you know, year over year as we move on. And, you know, I think in order to effectively address it, it's not going to necessarily be a new drug or one singular new treatment. it's going to have to be kind of a philosophical shift, I think, in society and how we're approaching it. It's really an all-hands-on-deck means of doing it. You know, we have, in the past, we've done research on this exact topic, and we're able to effectively lower a suicide rate in a particular region of Florida that was experiencing high pediatric suicides. wasn't just a, you know, a one institution fix. It was an entire community, an entire

regional fix, you know, from the political parties to, to the health care system, to the school system, to community organizations, so on and so forth. So in essence, it has to be something that us as a society need to care about. And I think once we care about it, that, you know, In the United States, we can do some pretty powerful things and just getting us all on the same page and kind of saying, okay, that's worth fixing. And I think we can do it. I like this. Denise, what is your thoughts around the impacts of social media? I'm so bad. I love social media, but the same time, I really, really wonder now that we're starting to see generations that solely grew up with social media, like the three of us, we didn't always have all this technology. we're seeing the impacts of when you're born immediately into social media, how do you think this is impacting society and maybe even the future? With AI, now you have deep fakes and nobody knows what's even real on social media. You have people who look perfect because they're

perfectly created and how does that impact somebody's mind? So what is your thought around just the impacts of social media and technology? So I think for transitional generations, like you referenced the three of us, the effect of social media is more confounding. You know, it's confusing and you're like, how can we live in a world where there are deep bakes, et cetera, et cetera. But I think you have to take into the reality that social media representative technology is actually progress. It's progress, technological progress. And I think Elon Musk has said that, you know, we're now people, we're cyborgs. You know, when you talk about this baby, you're born with an iPhone in your hand.

I mean, my little sister, I think she had an iPhone at like, I don't know, five or something like that. And she wasn't the only one in her class. So I think social media, you know, like the train or the plane or the automobile, is something to be celebrated for what it represents in terms of a technological advance. But as with anything else, you know, needs to be governed by politics, law, morality, you know, philosophy. et cetera, et cetera. But I think it should be celebrated as what it is. It just, you know, has to be used correctly. I hope we can all learn to use technology in a great way, a positive way. We can help fix our own mental health. And it sounds like you two could impact positively billions of people around the world of what you're doing. So if you want to get in touch with you,

they want to find out more information, how can they do so? Visit openc.com.com. Institute. So it's openc.com. institute, not.com. And you find all our information there. Amazing. Dr. Lewis Joseph and Denise Joseph, thank you so much for joining us today on Founders Story. Thank you. Thank you.