It's ok to take a rest!

By now, you must have all come back to work full of energy and maybe with some new year’s resolutions. If resolutions don’t lead to habits they are just a poor marketing strategy aimed at convincing yourself and the world that you are really serious about your own goals. Mis-selling! More often than not you will drop them before you know it - creating habits is bloody hard!

Hopefully you are rested and I repeat…it is OK to take a rest.

As an entrepreneur, rest can be construed as an impediment towards whatever floats your boat: success, fame, making a ton of money, series A, creating a strong pipeline, closing one more deal etc. Look...Driving a start-up up the roller-coasting hills of funding, client acquisition, revenue and well, everything else that doesn't go your way is really about dealing with the impossible.

I know it first hand, having failed twice before and having contemplated the death of FinFabrik three times in the last 28 months. As a side comment, we know we got lucky (maybe the topic of a future post!) and we don't mind sharing our stories as a cautionary tale.

2018 was a real tough year, we did what we could with what we had. We didn't know our solutions were not beating to the tempo of the crypto markets at the time of our go live. That downward spiral was scaring the retail flow, the one we had focussed our minds and solutions upon.

Last year took a toll on all of us but we never panicked; we fought hard, nothing happened until the last 6-7 weeks of the year but we kept going. There is no other way, no alternative.

So when I went to the UK to spend Christmas with my in-laws and for the first time in a long time, I did nothing...absolutely nothing! I took on a self-imposed exile from my thinking box. I still had a peep at my mailbox once or twice a day to make sure nothing urgent was left unattended but I decided to not chase anyone, not jump on replying frenetically to anything that came to me and more importantly I didn't do my "parallel processing".

I am weird beyond the colour of my socks...tell me something new! I am weird in the sense that I let issues, questions, planning run at the back of my mind. It's hard to explain but I go back and forth on something that runs in the background whilst I am doing something else. I am no neurosurgeon but it is how best I could describe what is happening with the jelly shaking in my skull.

Going back to switching off...I even did switch off my parallel processing which never happens, ever. I didn't feel bad about it because I had to do it! That’s a key point here.

I didn’t feel bad simply because I had to do it...

Maybe due to my upbringing, maybe because of my martial arts training but I hate feeling trapped and powerless. Powerless not in the sense I don’t have any control, that would be stupid because if anything, I only have control over my reaction and not the environment I am in. Powerless to me is being unable to take action, to move forward.

Let’s face it: we are a bunch of insecure, passionate, intense people and we never switch off, ever. There is always something to do, to chase, to build, to improve. It never stops. I push emails and messages on social media with the same passion a dung-beetle shoves his treasure into his hole. We can’t stand inactivity or at least when nothing happens. Maybe we are control freaks too!

Though I don’t have any secret remedy because everyone is different, at a different stage in their life (personally and their start-up’s), coming from a different culture and upbringing, I will share some of the things that worked for me in very simple words:

Recognise that you are going into a loop. That is the hardest thing to do because you are stuck in a whirlwind of activities that all seem equally important. They are not. Focus, prioritise on what makes a difference to your team, your company, yourself. Recognising that not everything is going well as planned or that you’re not feeling 100% is hard but look out for the signs: anger, temper, confusion, neck pain, sleepless nights, lack of appetite, thinking about the same thing etc.

Speak out. Talk to your co-founders, family and friends. Everyone around you is “impacted” by your relentlessness whether you like it or not. The more distant people are from your grand legacy, mission and vision, the better their advices will be. You want as less as biases as possible when you share your story. You are always right (or wrong) if you keep everything to yourself.

Give yourself a hug. I don’t mean that you become a very flexible yogi but you get my gist. We are perfectionist who are never satisfied. It is always too slow, too small, not good enough. On that topic, it is never external i.e. because of the team, tech, market…It is always what you could have done better, faster etc. Look back and see the journey that took you to today; am sure it is not that bad. Mine is replete with a lot of luck.

Pause and celebrate. A little different from my point above because this is more about highlighting the small victories and successes you achieve as a team: a new client, office, joiner, whatever it is. It is important to create a sense that progress is happening despite your feeling. A team with a good morale and attitude will give you a lot of strength to plough through the ups and downs.

Take some time out. Go for a walk, switch off. Not rocket science here! If like me, you feel like your mind is sometimes caught up in a vortex, pull up the emergency cord. Whilst we say we work 24/7, it is not entirely true: it is not work per se other than we are ON all the time. Taking time out takes different meanings and form – for me, at least half a day or a day per week is accounted for slowing down. My two weeks emergency shutdown in December was pretty uncommon until, unless it happens again but I will make sure I don’t have to hit repeat.

Have a good night sleep. Sleep is very powerful, it is our kryptonite. I don’t buy the Valley bollocks around working 100+ hours a week. If you can do it without abusing colourful pills or the white stuff and you don’t suffer from any lack of sleep, go for it but don’t brag about it. We are not built either physically or mentally to be alert and awake 24/7. Though I have friends who are ok with 4-5 hours good night sleep, I need 6-7 hours. Sleeping slows down our metabolism so we can repair and grow our bodies, and park/make sense of the learnings of the day.

Realise that you are not that important. Granted that we have big plans, a mission impossible kind of take on reinventing our industry but let’s face it: we are not doctors saving lives. That feeling has been at the forefront of my career when I had one, we are replaceable and don’t change lives. So whilst slowing down may have an impact on the survival chance of your start-up, the Universe still goes on without noticing your inner conflict. On another level, if you really think that you and only you are the one standing between success or failure of your business then I see two explanations: you are delusional and full of your yourself and/or you don’t have strong co-founders or teammates (by strong, I mean better than you.)

Change something. If you feel stuck, alone, misunderstood, whatever it is that made you feel the way you do, then something has to go or added i.e. change is needed. I always start a year with clearing up. In the past it looked like throwing all my CDs and records, changing my fitness regimen and the food I eat (less sugar!), getting up earlier, focussing on meetings that only generate revenues, moving around/removing teammates etc. A mix of personal and business because as an entrepreneur, there is no work-life balance, just life.

Get your body to help your mind. I have mentioned it before but getting off your arse properly (whatever works for you – for me it is about intensity and focus, even if I do pilates or yoga) will improve the way you feel. At a very, very simple level,  any physical activity brings more oxygen to your confused brains and that alone can’t be that bad. There is more to it of course in terms of the positive physical effects but I will let you do your own research. As for the psychological benefits you harvest from getting going, resilience, grit and perseverance are the ones that strike me first. It is so boring to plank for more than 10 minutes but it is also bloody boring spending your days chasing a client pipeline that fails to share your grand vision.

It’s OK to feel powerless, it’s OK to feel fragile, it’s OK to doubt but it’s not OK to not talk about it and think that you can do everything on your own without having an impact to or help from someone.

Enjoy the journey, it’s a long road ahead!