Entrepreneurs with addictions, codependency, can build healthy businesses and find sanity in their own?lives

Have you seen the Donut King documentary?

Ted Ngoy’s story is a perfect example of how personal issues can show up to affect an entrepreneur’s success and their relationships. In fact, I believe that those issues are a large part of what makes us become entrepreneurs in the first place.?

For lots of entrepreneurs, the struggle is real. We get caught up in the drama of bootstrapping, we become addicted to the ups and downs of risks, we forge ahead into the unknown — sometimes living in vagueness and without a plan.?

But if we work through our addictions, traumas, “isms”, we can build healthy businesses and find sanity in our own lives.?

People start businesses for lots of reasons. Sometimes people become entrepreneurs because they want to create a new life, and to re-write a story from their childhood.

And sometimes empires fall quicker than the time it takes to get them built.

Employee relationships, cash flow management, partnerships — they can all suffer if the person at the head of the company is operating from a place of addiction, or even denial.?

I had a lot of success from my mid-20’s to early 30’s, and I learned a lot of lessons in the decade that followed.

Stories from our past can’t be re-written, they are part of us. In my 40’s I learned that we cannot change the past.

A common fear of entrepreneurs is “losing it all,” but if that does happen it’s not as bad as it sounds. I learned that from personal experience. But I also learned “losing it all” is never actually what it sounds like if you are still alive. “Losing it all,” can help you find strength and clarity that you’d never imagined possible. It can deepen your relationships — especially your relationship with yourself.?

An old friend of mine, who is a former hugely successful entrepreneur, used to say to me that “money is the easiest problem to solve.” I thought he was crazy at first, but after lots of recovery from my own “isms,” I came to understand that he was right. Entrepreneurs are made to solve problems. Losing an empire is unfortunate but it is sometimes simply a new problem needing a solution.?

Ted Ngoy said, “If you could turn the clock around, I would do that. The past I cannot change, but I learned the heavy way.”

I believe that entrepreneurs don’t always have to learn the hardest lessons by way of experience. But they do need to be aware of their personal shortfalls in order to created their healthiest entrepreneurial path.?

Personal issues like addiction, people-pleasing, co-dependency, never completely go away. But through therapy, coaching, consulting, and recovery programs, individuals can find solutions so that they can build successful businesses, enjoy healthy relationships and, most importantly, sleep at night.

Want more? Join me for FREE speed coaching or book a private one-on-one session at dianeprince.co?