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There is a lot of conversations ongoing about mental health, and somehow, I feel the need to talk about entrepreneurs and their mental health. A recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that 72% of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected by mental health issues compared to just 48% of non-entrepreneurs.
Why is this?
Despite the glamourous part of entrepreneurship (which is all we mostly see on the Media), Entrepreneurs have to deal with more challenges, failures, betrayals from trusted staff, abandonment, disappointment, depressions, burnout, insomnia, and other related stuff which affect their mental health.
Even for those that will not have to deal with most of the negatives, growing a business from scratch and running it every single day can be likened to a constant attempt to keep a madhouse in order. Things get hectic. Deadlines not met. Contracts get breached. Productivity has to be kept on the high. Sometimes, there are also irate customers or clients to handle. It can get overwhelming.
Studies say entrepreneurs are twice as likely to suffer from depression, and six times more likely to suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Without mentioning names, some of you may (or may not) remember the story of a certain 29-year-old startup founder who jumped from a rooftop bar and died in 2015 and another who died in 2020 from a combination of drugs and mental illness. Clearly, entrepreneurs have to deal with a lot of bad days than they let on.
One way to protect your mental health is to make it a ritual to take time off work/business. I talked more about this in another post, so I should probably not say more. You need to spend a few hours out of the madness, to regain your sanity, socialize with people, renew your energy and then go back ready to smash more goals. Develop more personal and family relationships. You will need them as much as they need you.
Another tip for you as a founder or entrepreneur is to understand the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism. Often it is the drive towards perfectionism that keeps people away from happiness and contentment, and this could lead to anxiety and depression. Celebrate small victories and learn to bask in the euphoria, and give yourself a pat on the back. Don’t place unrealistic expectations of yourself and your business.
Learn to talk about bad days as much as you talk about the good days. You don’t always have to keep up a face that everything is going fine when it is not. Every entrepreneur should have that friend, partner, or confidante that you tell everything that might be going wrong. It is a good way to let out steam and bad vibes. Be honest about your struggles and share them with others. It is the need to escape the reality of bad days that may lead some people to depression or even drugs.
This last tip may not seem like one, but it is. Fix your finances. Financial problems account for some anxiety and depression cases, even among entrepreneurs. If your finances are well-sorted and your books are in order, you should have fewer worries. Have a stable financial plan for yourself and for your startup.
In the past, the mantra was this: I will just go and execute, and the numbers will do the talking. Interestingly, you can execute, but the numbers will not talk to markets in ways that help you. Simply, how you make money and where you make money are more important than the actual numbers on the balance sheet.
Tesla is a car company which sells “software subscription” and emission credits, and makes all its competitors look lost, even though most are delivering “better automobile numbers”; Toyota sells more than 6.5 million cars than Tesla, but Tesla is valued at close to 4x.
Go beyond the Needs and Expectations of customers to their Perceptions. When you do that, you create a fandom. Apple has one today as it crossed $3 trillion.
Apple briefly hit a market cap of $3 trillion during intraday trading on Monday, before dropping back under the mark shortly afterwards. Apple broke the barrier when its share price hit $182.86.
The milestone is mostly symbolic but it shows investors remain bullish on Apple stock and its ability to grow. Apple was up over 2.5% during intraday trading on Monday to a price per share over $182 after briefly hitting the $3 trillion mark.
While we deeply sympathize with the family and friends of Silvester Oromoni Jr who was gruesomely murdered in cold blood by his colleagues in Dowen College, Lekki, we have taken it up as a civic responsibility to always update the public on the events following up the trial and prosecution of the alleged killers of the lad and we would never rest our voice nor our pen till the criminals who murdered the innocent child or partook in the death of the young boy are brought to book to face justice no matter how long it may take.
Recall that Junior’s father, Mr. Silvester Oromoni Snr alleged that his son was poisoned as he was forced to drink some poisonous chemicals by his bullies and he was also beaten up by them which eventually led to the death of his son. The management of the school, Dowen college, Lekki, debunked the allegation of Junior being poisoned by his fellow student and beaten up to his death, in the school’s press release they claimed that junior sustained injury while playing football with his colleagues in the school premises, blatantly dismissing the allegation of poison and beating made by junior father.
Well, an autopsy (autopsy is a detailed dissection of a dead person, done to scientifically and medically ascertain the cause of their death or determine why they died) was subsequently conducted to determine (medically and scientifically ) the cause of Junior’s death and the autopsy result corroborated Junior father’s allegation that his young son was forced to drink some poisonous chemical and beaten to his death.
According to the autopsy result, Silvester Oromoni jr died of acute lung injury due to chemical intoxication. This is a clear indication that Junior was in no doubt poisoned by his bullies.
The bullies (5 of them) who were Junior’s fellow students were earlier on arrested by the Lagos police command in connection with the death of Junior but they were subsequently granted bail after their bail conditions were perfected by the families of the accused.
While we sit tight and see how this case unfolds, we believe that justice will definitely take its cause and the killers of the young lad face severe justice to serve as a deterrent to other bullies and killers out there and to provide succor to the family of the deceased. This autopsy report will definitely work in favour of the prosecution in establishing the case of murder against the bullies.
One thing that must NEVER be absolutely perfect is your pitch deck (or business plan). A perfect pitch deck is a failure because no market is standstill and waiting for someone to perfectly deck it!
Markets are dynamic because customers #move. A pitch deck that tries to understand every nuance of the market is hopeless. In mathematics, we call it an asymptote; a line which gets closer to a curve but never touches it at a finite distance. (Chinua Achebe wrote that proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten; mathematics is a compass that explains every aspect of the world)
The best business plan is the one that provides confidence to #BEGIN now. Why? In a few months, you might have so deviated that you would not believe that was the original idea!
This is 2022; stop spending time on that pitch deck and get out into the market right now. It’s about time! BEGIN.