Why Rates of Suicide And Depression Are So High For Entrepreneurs

We need to talk about why and what we can do to stop it

Jan Cavelle
Published in
6 min readSep 17, 2020

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Photo by Morning Brew on Unsplash

I was sitting in my office listening to my assistant give me a huge list of calls to return and the equally enormous list of people internally who wanted to see me. My mind went blank but I remember her amazed face when I wailed out “Everyone wants a piece of me! I can’t do it!”

There was a horrible silence. Both of us were embarrassed. I can’t remember who spoke first, but I know in a typically English way, it was just brushed under the carpet by both of us, turning quickly to the tasks of the day.

Mental health issues are still not talked about enough. We know that. But company boss mental health is talked about even less.. Bosses are expected to be strong. Bosses are expected to keep going come what may. Bosses are expected to be all things to all people, shoulder the burdens of others, and never show the tiniest tremble of weakness.

This is farcical, of course. Bosses are (shock, horror here) human like the rest of us. Bosses have issues in their backgrounds, problems in their personal lives, bereavements, and all the other things that can trigger problems. And bosses have two additional pressure points.

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Jan Cavelle
Invisible Illness

Author, writer, multi-start-up entrepreneur; Books “Scale for Success” out and "Start for Success" . Fast becoming a Medium addict.