Entrepreneurship, in real life.

I follow a lot of people within the entrepreneurship world and the biggest theme they all speak about is “hustle”. You have to work hard, 14 hours a day 7 days a week. If you have time to ski, then you don’t care about becoming an entrepreneur and you will never build a successful business.

I know, it’s not really what they are saying but that’s the way it comes across to regular people. The people that are starting out on their journey to start their new life coming out of the 9–5 corporate world. A safe world with structure and leadership that shows you what to do.

Life as an entrepreneur is definitely not for everyone. People need structure and a steady paycheck, that’s a reality. They have children, a mortgage and all sort of other responsibilities.

The issue comes when people, including me, see what these people do to become successful and they easily get discouraged. I can’t work 14 hours a day, I need to relax on the weekends, I am held hostage to the golden handcuffs. These are called excuses. If you can’t take the leap you’re not meant to be in business for yourself.

It’s a scary feeling to have. You have all of these hopes and dreams and you’re told to just do it, take the leap. If you don’t then you’ll fail. If you have no EQ you will fail. To me it’s the same as Lebron hearing in high school that he needed to practice all day everyday or he would never make it. Some people want it more, Lebron did but the majority of people would give up because if they take a day off they feel like they don’t want it bad enough.

Now, add in a mental illness. Think about someone with anxiety. They can’t just do it and take a leap. The need the corporate job to keep them stable. They are told by leaders in the business world to put in the extra time or they won’t be successful. Basically they are “stuck” because they don’t have the drive. This is complete BS. I am someone that suffers from Bipolar II. Having Bipolar makes everyday a struggle. Going from feeling super driven to having no energy to even get off the couch within minutes.

Living with Bipolar is hell. Seeing successful people in the business world hustling all day and always being very positive. Questioning themselves, “why can’t I be like them”? People living with Bipolar are just as driven, just as passionate and are actually more creative then most people. Having Bipolar and wanting to pursue something beyond a corporate environment is one of the hardest things they can do. I relate it to the girls who strive to look and be like the Instagram models. No one talks about wanting to be like a hustling, winning business person. The envy is deep and painful. The overwhelming feeling of wishing we were normal. Like the girls in the Instagram world not living up to what they should look like, we feel like we should live up to what “real”, “successful” business people look like. We place so much pressure on ourselves and that drives us down into a deep pit. We can’t be normal, we can’t succeed and we are held back by a stupid mental illness.

We do everything we are supposed to do. Eat right, get exercise, sleep enough, build a support network, read books, work on becoming self aware, and manage our medications. Even if we do all of these things it doesn’t matter. We will fall into the pit no matter how hard we work on all of the above. Therefore, we believe we cannot be successful. We cannot take a leap because we cannot afford even a bad hour in the business world. The ups and downs don’t last an hour though. They can last a day, a week or even years. So how in the hell are we ever going to be successful like the big boys.

This is never talked about. Girls trying to look like Instagram models is a hot topic. Superstars come for support saying it doesn’t matter how you look. You don’t see a business superstar ever offering up advice on how someone with a mental illness can be successful in business. I can guess why they don’t.

My reasons for them not talking about it are:

1. They have no reason to talk about it.

2. They don’t invest in the learning it takes to understand. No investment in training. (It takes the entire team to learn not one person)

3. There is a stigma attached to mental illness.

4. It doesn’t gain them followers or create any KPI.

5. They think it will never effect their business.

All of these reasons are not an excuse to not talk about it. I’ve seen leaders touch on it, very briefly. One sentence or even a promise they will address the issue in their world one day. I know they care about the mental illnesses and deeply care about their employees but there is more to do then just be aware of it. It takes more than to know it exists and it may one day effect their business. Some companies I have seen have culture builders, no HR department. I’ve even seen one leader, a CEO of a 600 employee company, be the entire HR department is him. From the outside HR looks like it’s all about caring about your people and knowing the name of their cat. That’s not where it ends. You need to be prepared for a crisis. A project manager working on a multi million-dollar project going down due to anxiety or depression.

I know there are “big boys” out there that must be suffering themselves. They can’t show it to the world or else they may look like a failure. They will lose funding, trust from the board or worse a hit to their personal brand. Authenticity is a theme that is preached, hard, in building a brand. How authentic are people if they don’t talk about mental health issues they suffer from? Being real goes beyond acting like you have it all. Acting like you have no issues and you simply hustle 14 hours a day and have successful after successful meeting. You are doing yourself a disservice by not being self aware of your mental disabilities. You can’t hide behind creating content on your good days and not on your bad days.

I am very guilty of this. I don’t publicly share much but I would never share my struggles. How would I ever get a job if they know I may need mental health time? How can I be valuable if I can’t always be on? The stigma is a killer. It destroys our trust in management. Every company now preaches an open and honest office environment. That’s a load of shit. Open and honest about what? They really like the new ping pong table, or they wish they had a different type of beer in the office fridge? How about truly open and honest about what someone is going through. It would be a lot easier to say to your manager that you’re in a very deep pit and need some support or a day of less work. Being Bipolar or have any other type of mental illness does not mean we cannot contribute to the work in a positive way. If we walked into our manager’s office and said, we have cancer and need a day of less work or a day off; that would be completely fine. There would be no second thought and it would be more like, how much time do you need? What can we do to support you? This is far from the case when you are mentally ill. Imagine trying to raise money from VC’s when they know you have a mental illness. Not going to happen and if it does the money will be very insignificant.

You get treated like your lazy and are faking your sickness. I have called in sick because I’m having a bad day and felt guilty every time because I didn’t have any external symptoms. My employees were aware of my illness and supported me. Supported my bad days and knowing it was nothing personal. Some days I couldn’t talk to customers and they would step up. To my manager it looked like I was simply lazy or disengaged.

The mental illnesses need to be treated like a real or tangible sickness. CEO’s, managers, and peers need training in this area of HR. Real training. Authentic, open training. I have seen companies that have mandatory training but it’s simply there to cover their ass, not because they truly care. The stigma kills people. Literally. Suicide happens for so many reasons but not being accepted is one of them. Not being able to live up to what people think is the right way of doing things, the things that you need to do to be successful. Not raising enough for a start-up. Having your company crash and burn.

But isn’t support from friends and family enough. No. You spend 8, 10, 14 hours a day at work. Your with your colleagues more than you are your friends and family. You need support from your peers just as much as your friends and family. You need the extra feedback from your manager. You need to hear the positive contribution you are making. You also need to hear what’s not working. Your manager cannot live in fear of telling you something you’re doing isn’t working. You need to be treated the same but you need to hear it a little more often. You as a manger cannot assume your employees know where they stand. You can give someone with a mental illness a raise even but they will sometimes question why. Did they give me the raise because they want me to feel better? Did I get it because my work is good? A person with a mental illness need a micro amount of extra hand holding.

A person with Bipolar needs a little more. They need structure and routine. If you can recognize this and turn a weekly 10-minute meetings with your employees to 15 minutes with someone with a mental illness you will be more successful. Taking these extra steps will save you sick pay, poor work performance and low moral. With proper training a manager won’t be afraid to ask how someone with a mental illness is truly doing and the employee will have the trust to answer truthfully. They won’t be afraid of saying I am in a pit or I am at a very high place right now. You’ll have the ability to maximize their productivity when they have their great days. If you treat them the way they need to be treated the bad days will drop. I know when I can trust someone and explain what I am going through increases my passion and turns me into a bigger advocate for the company.

I have been in positions where I don’t want to tell people where I work let alone recommend they come and work for the company. We all know your employees are your biggest advocates, no doubt, just a fact. If you don’t create trust with one of them, it can drive your company into the ground. You will have a real struggle bringing the company back up if you don’t allow your employees to be open. If you don’t create a work environment built on mutual respect and trust. Mutual, meaning going both ways. Someone with a mental illness can see right through you and sniff out the BS if you are disingenuous. Don’t waste anyone’s time pretending or giving lip service. It kills your reputation. I have been through it. A clinical approach to talking about how the employee is doing is the wrong way of doing things. Don’t be a counsellor, you do not have a PhD. Be real. Listen like a friend. Give honest feedback and have some real solutions and genuinely want to help them. Ask what they need and allow them to be honest. Don’t create a political environment.

I worked in an environment in which there was a high amount of gossip. Everyone lived in a silo and never spoke their mind to the manager. She always said that she wanted the gossip to stop and wished that the 12 colleagues could trust each other and get out of their silo. You couldn’t trust anyone. It felt like everybody was out to get everybody else. I made the mistake of being honest with my boss about the optics and perception that some of her actions created. She made me feel safe. I said what everyone else was thinking and was punished for it. I have been burned by the corporate world, probably for life.