Entrepreneurs know that mindset matters when aiming for success. But, in truth, do we really practice this?
Up in the air. Racing to the next meeting. Late night phone calls with different teams. Last-minute late-night meetings. Early morning brainstorming sessions. Hustle. Hustle. And More hustle. The life of an entrepreneur can be exciting, enthralling, but also overwhelmingly exhausting and can lead to burnout. Hear from Tasha Heipel, a Canadian Neuroscientist and certified NLP Coach, and from Ben Ivey, The Fulfillment Artist on hacks and tips to reduce stress by becoming your own mental health management expert.
On Monday 13 May, Shanghai II Hub delightedly hosted our first ever workshop on mental health specifically targeting the entrepreneurial community of Shanghai. We partnered up with WeWork, a leading coworking space that is rapidly growing in Shanghai and hosts both small businesses and entrepreneurs of all walks of life.
As we learned from this article published on the WEF Agenda, there is 582 million people in the world who are entrepreneurs. That means that about 8% of the total world population are creators, leaders, and self-starters – they provide jobs and boost local economies, they facilitate innovation and spark cross-sector collaboration. They are an engine in constant motion, running 24/7. But let’s face it, not even machines can run for that long without some rest or batteries recharge.
Entrepreneurs are at the highest health risk. They choose convenient, cheap fast foods, instead of nourishing their bodies with natural, healthy meals. They sacrifice sleep to get more things done, as often entrepreneurs must juggle between roles. One day you are your company’s lawyer, another day, you are a full-time backend engineer. Their bodies are turning into “S” shapes from the constant computer crunching & bad sitting down habits. Scheduling a gym session or even going for a walk around the block is mission impossible – ‘too busy’ or ‘not enough hours in a day’, as most entrepreneurs would say. Lack of care to their own bodies means that the hardware will wear off one day. Lack of care to their mental health means that the software, the powerful driver behind it all, will get the most impacted. Productivity will suffer, and so will the overall business. The entrepreneur’s ability to make good, strategic decisions are blurred, and often times, morality is compromised in order to advance, loosing perspective of the bigger picture.