100 Stories of Growth - Insights from Entrepreneurs

Then during time off during the Christmas 2016 holidays, Morgan had time to consider her wellbeing and mental health. “I had this huge realisation that I wasn’t just burned out physically and mentally, but my passion for Livity had utterly burned out as well.” Confronting the evil twins Anxiety and depression can been viewed as a malevolent duo, says Morgan. “I think ‘evil twins’ is a great way of describing them,” she says. “I sometimes feel that the evil twins still tap me on the shoulder on the regular basis, even though I’m on the other side of recovery.” At that time, she felt that her energy was spent and she was consumed by “hollowness and helplessness”. Sometimes, she adds, it was difficult to get out of her pyjamas. A new style of entrepreneurship When she surrendered to depression and gave it a name, Morgan talked about medication options with her doctor. “I really didn’t want to have to get my head around medications and being numb,” she says. But she found a solution in another form of therapy. “I reached the crossroads where brilliance meets madness. The pyjamas represented the depression and being stuck, unable to move forward. But it suddenly became my inspiration”. “I am now so mindful about Pjoys, my new business,” explains Morgan. “That’s my ambition. I work really hard not to work hard. Slowly but joyfully.” Taking time to find your real self There’s a lot of truth in the idea that talking about wellbeing and mental help people to spot the signs and make helpful interventions. A lot of people describe mental health acceptance as coming out and there are more people who are coming out with their mental health stories, “I think I’m stronger for it. I’ll be a better businesswoman for it and I’ll probably be a better leader if I ever build a company that needs to be led again.” “Anxiety and depression can be viewed as a malevolent duo. I think ‘evil twins’ is a great way of describing them.” — MICHELLE MORGAN, FOUNDER, PJOYS 25 24 INSIGHTS FROM ENTREPRENEURS Hindsight is an extremely useful part of any entrepreneur’s development, helping them to build out their professional and personal tool kit. It can be extremely cathartic, allows self-reflection and provides much-needed comfort. Whether through psychotherapy, life coaching or a confidant, learning from a challenging wellbeing or negative mental health experience can inform the present and help people to resolve any future issues before they may escalate again. It may be possible that many entrepreneurs have experienced difficult emotional times in the past, but suffered in a climate of less transparency as the lid on the mental health debate remained firmly closed. Today, wellbeing and mental health have become part of a more high- profile debate. And rightly so. We asked entrepreneurs to tell us what could have helped them manage any wellbeing and mental health challenges that they’ve encountered before. In general, they agree that more human contact and empathy from other people who shared their experience would have been highly beneficial. A resounding 62% of respondents agree that “knowing other people were going through what I am and being able to speak with them” was greatly important. Feeling isolated or different from your peer group or wider community can be a very damaging experience for anyone, in all walks of life. Talking to people with similar work and life journeys is clearly enormously helpful to all of us. We know that suffering in silence can be a very negative approach, which many respondents in our research tell us they realise. So again, human contact of some form is therefore very important. Some 32% of entrepreneurs feel they would have benefitted from “regular life coaching”. A further 54% of respondents in our research would have liked “connecting with a buddy – another experienced founder – who I could lean on”. And 47% of them say that sessions with external mentors would have been very helpful. The following chart (see top page 26) shows what founders believe that they would have done differently. EMOTIONAL CAPITAL What support could the SME community have offered its business leaders?