Transforming Entrepreneurial Life: From Burnout to Balance

I should have seen the signs. I was avoiding them, all of them.

Year 1: Stop menstruating for 6 months

Year 2: Had massive back aches from bad posture

Year 3: Sprained my jaw from grinding my teeth at night

Year 5: Developed asthma and was hospitalised for 2 weeks. I continued with daily asthma attacks for 9 months.

The ongoing asthma was the massive wake up call for me. My pulmonologist pretty much said to me, I can't keep feeding you steroids and sleeping pills. If you do not change your lifestyle, it will manifest in some way or another. At this point, I'm 10 kgs above my weight in Year 1 and thanks to the inhalers, I also had a very hoarse voice (almost no voice when I'm speaking).

The first few years, I couldn't differentiate happiness from stress. I was happy, I felt I was achieving in life doubling and some years quadrupling our numbers but my body was shouting for me to stop.

I just hit Year 8 now, I'm still working on my back pain, I wear mouthguard to sleep every night, I am seeing my chiropractor every 6 weeks and I botox every year to manage the masseter muscles. On occasion on stressful seasons, I have to take sleeping aid still but I'm getting much better now.

Because I'm more aware of my health, I have found the common occurring patterns.

• It usually happens around the beginning of Q4 every year. This is where we have to do our last burst of fire, it's pitching season for all marketers. A lot of networking, a lot of late nights and early mornings, and loads of coffee.
• It's Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Singles Day, Christmas, Boxing Day, you name it! I've seen our e-commerce clients change entire teams 3 times in 8 years, yet we remain. At least me and my founding team. Imagine our burn out.
• Haze starts around this time too in Malaysia. Which means everyone starts to falls sick and this is the season I'm out networking non-stop. There's an award night every other week, a gala here and a charity run there! (The year I developed the asthma was the same year I went for a dragon boat race - gave it my all even though I didn't train for it).
• Pressure to hit numbers. I have amazing investors but it's me VS me every year and I hate it if I don't perform. So the pressure is on!
• Worse of all, the team starts jumping ship this time of the year because this is the season the offers come or as they start burning out, they are hunting for options! And when they leave, who sits in the pluck the leaky bucket? Me. As leaders, we are the last line of defence, along with my faithful amazing founding members.

So what do I do now that I know these? I try to change my lifestyle.

1. I go for meditation classes once a week at least. It is slow, and yes sometimes I want to pull all my hair out because I have so many other things to do but I need it for my sanity.
2. I hire in advance. We always seem to hire on time for someone to resign. It is very annoying. I am trying to expand but people are leaving just as I am adding. So now I add in bigger bulk.
3. I delete every employee from my social media. This is super important for me. I don't want to be informed of anything because I will over-analyse and most of the time, for nothing.
4. I work out, 2 times a week.
5. I take time out for hobbies and family and life. Since the pandemic, I play boardgames with friends, and I read a nice non-work related book every few weeks. I'm on The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan. It's amazing!
6. I learn to say NO. Because of FOMO effect, I use to attend every single dinner meeting I'm invited to. Now I have a rule, i just take one a week at most.
7. I stop reading the news. I am not choosing to be ignorant, I'm just choosing my mental health first. That is not to say I'm not taking action or I'm avoiding world events, I am just choosing to the ignore the extra juicy bits in favour of my own mental health.

LASTLY!!! This is the most important one of all, realising that l am running my own race, and no matter what anyone tells me (Potential investors or newbie analysts you meet and is trying to pitch to, will tell you 5 year old startups are too old, you are not growing fast enough, your cap table is flawed, founders above 40 have no more energy to run the race like a 20 year old. They do not run my race) , I do not accept any negative talk anyone sends my way, including myself. That's just my ego. Once I realise that it's very OK to slow down, I began to lead a much healthier, sustainable, entrepreneur life.

Today, I'm proud to say we hit >30% growth from 2022 and we still have 2 months to go. My team is intact, I'm not sick and I'm going for my first big vacation in December.

#mentalhealth #entrepreneurship