My tricks for staying resilient and creative while building a startup

When I reflect back on my startup journey, I am surprised I am still here.

I underestimated the job - huuge time.

But what I was surprised to learn was that:?

Every time I was at rock bottom, somehow, I found a way out of it.

In those hard moments “somehow” I found the inner resources to move forward.

The "somehow" actually included mental health or well-being practices I did to overcome the fear, the tiredness, the hopelessness or any other difficult emotion.

1. 10 days of silence in a Vipassana meditation retreat?

Before even starting, when I was confused and afraid to leave my full-time job in London and start my own business, I went to a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat to think about my life and what I should do next.

It was the first time in my life that I didn't read, listen, talk, or write anything for 10 days.

Crazy experience to first meet my real self and stay with it.

In the first Vipassana retreat, I made the final decision to start my business. I told myself: it's now or never - I came back home and in 2 weeks I got the first investment agreement.

The second time during a 10-day silent retreat, I went to help myself publish my first book, and 5 months later the book was out!

2. Writing a book?

When I started Selftalk, I researched a lot about the science behind the self-talk phenomenon. All the therapy content our psychologists created for our app, I tested it on myself.

As a result, I felt like I transformed from a Nokia phone with limited features to an iPhone - with so many more features and capabilities.

I felt the need to write about these insights and, together with my co-founder Vio, publish a book sharing our experience and the science behind it.

3. Water fasting for 1/3/8 days

My passion for psychology started from psychonutrition because as a teenager I really wanted to lose weight.

When I became an entrepreneur, focus and flow were priorities and I heard that fasting is a great way to increase focus.

So I tested it.

The first time I did a 3-day fast, the only focus that increased was my focus on food.

I thought about food all the time.

After a few tries, I realized for me fasting is about cleaning my digestive system - not about focus.

So after my last trip to the US, I felt that my gut flora needed a serious cleanup, so I went to an 8-day water fast retreat.

Supervised by a team of doctors, I had this experience and indeed my gut really needed it.

But what took me by surprise was a crazy state of intense presence.

I have never felt that present in my life.

I would definitely do this again.

During those 8 days, I kept working and running interviews to hire a designer.

So work was going at 50-60% of its usual pace. More on this crazy experience here.

4. Standing on nails on a Sadhu board

If you keep reading, then let me tell you something about my friends.

They are as crazy as me.

At one of the house parties, my friend Dorin introduced us to "sadhu boarding" - a board with nails hammered in.

I stepped on it and the pain shocked me.

The physical pain brought to my mind a very intense emotional pain from my last breakup. I was so surprised by this.

I couldn't stay for more than 30 seconds but I had an idea - to test it again and see if it helps me get in contact with emotions I had repressed.

So one week later, I came back to my friend and stayed on the nails for 5 minutes.

Five full minutes.

My hypothesis was true - I got in contact with some intense repressed emotions. Read more here!

5. 48h in a Dark Retreat?

The most recent crazy experience I tried and I promised myself the last one for some time was a dark retreat.

Just before launching Selftalk 2.0, I went to stay 48 hours in the dark.

It was also the end of the summer so I wanted to close the season by doing something new.

And here I was, in a dark hotel room in the forest (again, it was a dark retreat).

I went there thinking I would have some sort of breakthrough, that my fear would take over and I might go crazy.

But it was nothing like that.

My mind was quite obedient, like a puppet.

In those 48 hours, I realized that my mind is strong enough. It's resilient.

In the final hours, I decided that the next experiences I try will be about the body.

Mind training has finished for this phase of my life.

To conclude, these experiences helped me step out of my daily routine and allowed me to observe my autopilot mode. They enabled me to better calibrate this autopilot.

In order to change a system, you need to step outside of it.

Now, when I look back, I laugh at my curiosity to try out-of-the-box, crazy things.

If this got you curious, I invite you to join my online webinar (chat) this Friday, January 31.

My co-founder will share five more crazy things she tried, and I’ll share more details about the one mentioned above. Sign up here: https://lu.ma/b3ric9lh

I hope to see you there!