Entrepreneurs and stress: from management to human mastery

“I was selected because of my high tolerance to stress”, a founder told me during an interview.?

A lot of other founders echoed. Some shared they didn't really notice stress until they crashed.?

Some acknowledged that when stress levels go down, something feels off, so they almost feel compelled to create more stress.

The high tolerance to stress is a superpower that often makes individuals self-select to become entrepreneurs. It has a darker side though. I argue is one of the factors that makes entrepreneurs’ relationship with stress complicated.

The second one is a drastic change in the nature of stress that we face today compared to even 100 years ago.?

In combination, they make stress management challenging if not impossible for founders and entrepreneurs.

Let me explain what I mean and then propose a stress management strategy that addresses those two factors and allows entrepreneurs develop long-term resilience.?

The strategy that is founded on the nature of stress and being human and driven as opposed to approaching stress management as adding chores to their long to-do lists.????

WHAT IS STRESS

If you are reading this article, you are most likely negatively impacted by stress, which can be manifested as:

• low energy and fatigue
• mental fog
• procrastination
• deterioration in physical health: blood pressure spikes, migraines or pain
• at its peak as anxiety, depression, and burnout

Not a surprise then that we see stress as something negative.?

Let me show you a different side of stress. Stress in fact is part of out human resilience and?a key mechanism for our survival.

Stress is a change in the environment that requires an adaptation response from us: a stress response. That is necessary to survive in new conditions.?

It’s best illustrated by an example of stress humans faced most of their evolution: physical stress.

We meet a wild animal in the forest. A bear.?

• The bear is your threat, it’s localized
• Protecting yourself = a physical action
• You run for your life or freeze
• The bear is gone = the threat is gone
• You feel SAFE

The stress reaction is over.?

If we survived and the bear is gone, we would naturally get back to life: attending to the fire, chilling, and hanging out.?We would also end up stronger and better prepared to react next time.?

STRESS 2.0: “BEAR” TURNED INTO A FANTASTIC BEAST

The stress and bears that entrepreneurs face nowadays are very different. I’d say bears now disguise themselves as fantastic beasts.

They almost exclusively attack our minds. For entrepreneurs, those attacks are running out of money, missing deadlines, and losing clients.?

Here is how their mental nature impacts their reactions:??

• The threat is a mental construct, it has no defined borders
• Protecting yourself feels like a mental task
• They fight in their heads by being smart and strong-willed
• The beast follows them day and night
• They forget how it is to feel safe

They enter a life of chronic physical and emotional tension. Yet, they are supposed to smile, lead, inspire, and make 10 great decisions per hour.?

The mismatched reaction is further amplified by that superpower of entrepreneurs: high tolerance to stress. Here is how this one plays out.

HIGH TOLERANCE TO STRESS: “I DON’T FEEL THE PAIN”

How do we realize it’s too much for us? Too much stress and tension.

We FEEL we are getting tired, upset, and thirsty. We intervene before it gets overwhelming. Before we crash at the end of the day. Before we develop burnout, depression, or anxiety.

That high tolerance to stress that is a superpower of many founders and entrepreneurs means they don’t feel stress as well as most of us.

It’s the darker side of high tolerance to stress. Lacking “pain stress receptors”.

The receptors alert us to the discomfort of a hurting toe before we inflict a serious injury on it.

A lot of entrepreneurs are oblivious to hurting toes. They walk, run, and hike on that toe until their whole leg, mind and body are affected.

Here is how that combo of two factors plays out for entrepreneurs in the relationship with stress:

Never feeling safe in the face of mental threats?

+

Not feeling the emotional and physical tension until it gets too much to bear

No wonder #stressmanagement feels like a black box and a helpless endeavor to many #entrepreneurs.?

It can be different, I promise!

I have seen it with my clients some of whom, serial entrepreneurs and former stress-addicts have learned to deal with the magic beast (Stress 2.00) as well as their ancestors dealt with bears (Stress 1.0).

They learned to react and fully recover while remaining the high-energy, driven selves.?

GET GOOD AT STRESS 2.0

Here are 5 principles for you as an entrepreneur to effectively deal with stress 2.0.?

1. Develop conscious sensitivity to stress. You need to start hearing those distress signals before they become loud outcries. That sensitivity is founded on physical awareness, our ability to sense ourselves that scientists call interoception.
2. Take those distress signals as an early warning. It’s your nervous system giving you heads-up about an appearance of a bear (that has now turned into a magic beast).? Hear them out and act on them in the moment to prevent escalation. It would require you to feel without getting scared and brushing the signals aside.?
3. Deal with the magic beast as you would deal with a bear: accept and embrace the physical nature of the reaction. Let those motor neurons that get fired when we react to stress get physically expressed. No need to shake or yell in the moment if the environment is not appropriate: but make sure to get it out by the end of the day.
4. Get back to a conscious feeling of safety once you have responded. It requires a skill of conscious orienting and sensing yourself. It’s key to ending the response and piling on more. It scares away the bear that would otherwise keep waiting for you under the tree.?

Now that you have created a foundation and skills for dealing with the magic beast. You don’t simply manage stress. You are good at stress.?

Stress is no longer a black box. You know how to choose your individual stress management tools because you know what, when, and how those work for you.?

THE SKILL OF STRESS: ONLY AVAILABLE TO THE WHOLE OF YOU?

Now, let’s pause.

Do those steps seem weird or complicated? What are you THINKING right now?

I argue that our expectation to THINK our way out of a problem or a challenge is what keeps us locked in an eternal stress cycle. And what could make these steps feel weird.?

Those steps are about you seeing the whole of you: the mind, the body, the soul all making up you. The whole of you reacts and gets impacted by stress (=change). And the only way to get good at it is to include the whole of you in the response.??

Don’t be that person who lives in their head. Be a human, a proud owner of the whole of you: from head to toes. Then instead of a chore stress management becomes an exploration and an adventure. Like sitting in that tab with ice water on the article pic.

Want to know more? Curious about facing stress as a human??

Book a chat here: https://bogdanovayulya.youcanbook.me/

The article is inspired by and based on the work of Stephen Porges (The Polyvagal Theory of Nervous System Regulation, Peter Levine (Somatic Approach to Healing Trauma), Brian M Irene Lyon (Nervous System Expert)?

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Hi, I am Yulia,?

I help driven people with a mission feel good in their skin. So they can follow their vision with a sense of purpose, steady energy, and self-trust.?

Here are some of the results my clients enjoyed through working together:

• more clarity on their purpose and vision
• increased mental and physical energy levels
• feeling comfortable “in their own skin”, knowing who they are
• improved state and quality of life with ADHD, depression, and anxiety
• “people mastery”: getting better at leading and deeply connecting with others

My approach to #coaching is grounded in the belief that change and transformation come from riding the wave of our human nature, rather than from more and harder work.?

With over a decade of experience in the health and wellness space and my journey of personal transformation and recovery from trauma, I have positively impacted the lives of over 800 clients.?

I draw from various disciplines and personal experiences, including #Embodiment, #Breathwork, Cold Exposure, #Mindset Coaching, Neuroplasticity training, Biohacking and Nutrition Consulting, to provide you with a 360 approach to mental resilience.

Book a chat for more info: https://bogdanovayulya.youcanbook.me/