We don’t have to suffer to be a success in our business
WHEN we think of the entrepreneur, we are enthused by caricatures of those highly successful individuals who work 100 hour weeks and sacrifice everything to get ahead.
With such terms such as “failure is not an option”, “sleep is for wimps” and “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” bandied about many start-up ecosystems across the world, it would be surprising not to think of these heroes and heroines of the business world as indestructible as they create wealth and employment throughout the economy.
Yet with four out of 10 new businesses failing within three years, this is clearly not the case at all. More worryingly, many are ignoring the real mental and physical challenges they face every day when starting and running their businesses.
That is why, two weeks ago on World Mental Health Day, it was encouraging to finally see a focus on well-being in the workplace and on the health of the wealth creators in the economy.
For example, a recent survey of New Zealand start-up founders discovered that 95% believed that being an entrepreneur affected their mental health, with 71% experiencing anxiety, 59% having issues with sleep and 53% believing they were depressed. This may be surprising to some who feel that the entrepreneur is a driven individual who will succeed no matter what.
But with statistics showing that nearly four in 10 people in the UK will not consider starting a business because of a fear of failure, this demonstrates the high stakes that many of those people who take the jump into starting a new business face every day, especially given that only around a fifth of start-ups will survive five years.
There are an increasing number of studies that have shown that many of those who start businesses not only feel they have countless problems in juggling their business while trying to maintain a personal life, but they often feel they are doing it by themselves and that the risks they bear are theirs alone.
At the same time, they are trying to manage not only their own expectations but the expectations of others including family, staff, investors and clients, and given these pressures it is not surprising that some will succumb to depression.
For many the biggest issue is the long working hours culture, with many slaving days, nights and weekends with very little breaks or holidays, that can lead to an eventual burnout.
Yes, there is an expectation that at the start of every business that maximum effort will need to be put into place to launch it successfully, but if that pattern continues into the future then it will inevitably affect the mental and physical health of the founder. There is the danger of focusing on the business to the exclusion of everything else, with family and friends neglected and hobbies and interests put to one side.
In addition, making hard decisions about employees and being ultimately responsible for every major decision can cause high levels of stress, especially as many people in this position have rarely been trained for it.
Finally, with start-ups increasingly attracting funding from external investors, there are growing pressures to succeed in order to see a return on investments quickly, rather than patiently building up the business over a number of years so that achievable milestones are put into place to establish a strong and sustainable customer-base.
Given this, some may be surprised to find that the average age of the 577 firms that have appeared on the Wales Fast Growth 50 for the last 19 years is 12 years, with some being far older than that, demonstrating that growth takes time and effort.
It could be argued that high stress is the price that entrepreneurs pay for being successful, but it would seem that an increasing number are failing to take care of their mental and physical wellbeing.
For example, it is likely that the entrepreneur will become less productive and effective, which will have a knock-on effect on the performance of the business and on the morale of the team. This can lead to poor decision making which will lead to further problems in both the long and short term.
More worryingly, life at work will become less fun as the business takes over their lives. Those who take the leap into entrepreneurship choose to do so not because they want to make more money but because they want control over their own destiny. If managing a business becomes too stressful as a result then this will undermine the very reason why many became an entrepreneur in the first place.
Unfortunately, many are refusing to recognise these issues, accepting stress as the norm and justifying their existence as part of the entrepreneurial process.
That approach has to end now and entrepreneurs need to increasingly understand that they do not have to suffer to be successful and that, more importantly, lower stress levels will lead to greater creativity and innovation.
In fact, unlike large organisations where responsibility can be shared, entrepreneurs are the beating heart of all start-ups and taking care of that resource should be their primary consideration if the business is to grow and develop successfully.