Spoiler Alert:
The Wellbeing of an Entrepreneur CAN be Positive!
Getting much need R&R before moving onto daily business activities.
Dear Diary,
This has been a chaotic week to say the least. Not only did the accelerator begin, but I also got news that my cofounder needs to take a leave of absence (which we are in full support of). For us, spring and summer are some of our most critical times for building our proof of concept (PoC) as we are heavily dependent on the weather for data collection. So with one person down, the week has looked a little bit like this:
In reality, we had our moment and now we’ve moved forward with adjusted schedules and allocation of tasks. Coincidentally, as we were getting our heads on straight, week 1 of the accelerator program came in 🔥HOT 🔥with the topic of the week being “Wellness for Entrepreneurs”. How timely!
Our speaker, Sierra-Leone Jones (she/her), went above and beyond the typical rhetoric you hear around taking care of yourself in the corporate world. While we know the advice to drink enough water, sleep enough hours, and make time for yourself is important to your overall wellbeing, it’s been said so much that its effectiveness is lost on many of us. We hear it over and over and think “yeah yeah I know I know…” 🥱 So where did this conversation go if it wasn’t the usual checklist of doing the essentials and thinking happy thoughts?
In Sierra’s presentation, she taught us about the importance of positive psychology and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Now, many folks are probably not like me, but when Sierra started talking about NLP, my brain instantly heard “Natural Language Processing” and I was all kinds of confused. 🥴🤖 But pretty soon, I actually learned what Neuro-Linguistic Programming is. A definition from MedicalNewsToday:
“Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a way of changing someone’s thoughts and behaviors to help achieve desired outcomes for them. It may reduce anxiety and improve overall wellbeing.”
In other words, it essentially hits at the concepts of reframing (looking at things in a new way) and anchoring (linking positive feelings and emotions to particular events) to improve your outlook on life. Through this, you surround yourself with genuine positivity that propels you forward in the task at hand. Between NLP and positive psychology, it’s easy to fall into the mindset of reinforcing what’s known as toxic positivity - the phenomenon that dismisses and ignores negative emotions and feelings in lieu of positive ones. What is most important here with the wellbeing of entrepreneurs specifically though is to not ignore the bad that happens. Our failures are some of our most important opportunities for growth. Reframing them positively helps us realize these opportunities. However, owning the emotions we feel when the failures happen is equally as important for turning those opportunities into reality. From neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor:
“When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens; any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.”
Following the 90 second rule, you can let the emotions do their thing as you process them, feel them, and let them go. This is far more beneficial than trying to ignore them or live in them for days, weeks, months, or years. In addition, it enhances your personal journey with richer experiences, enabling you to write your own story more vividly than before.
In addition to NLP, Sierra also introduced the concept of PERMA, which is an acronym that helps us reflect on how wellbeing is showing up for ourselves every day.
The main point of PERMA is to help us with reframing our experiences in a positive light after we have had our moment to feel them. As an exercise for our homework this week, we were asked to apply the PERMA lens to eight areas of our life: Career, Money, Health, Friends & Family, Significant Other/Romance, Personal Growth, Fun & Recreation, and Physical Environment. For each item on this list, we asked the following questions:
P: What positive emotions do I frequently experience in this area?
E: How engaged or absorbed am I in activities related to this area?
R: What is the quality of my relationships like in this area?
M: How much meaning or purpose do I find in this area?
A: What achievements or progress have I made in this area?
While some of these were more straightforward, others were more difficult to think about in this light (which is probably an indicator that I need to work on those areas of my life 💡). Combined with NLP, this provides a new set of tools to use when we celebrate the good, the bad, and the everything in between. 🥳
To summarize: your wellbeing matters. Whether you are an entrepreneur or not, if we do not take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and otherwise, we will not be in a position to put our best foot forward. And as an entrepreneur, if you want to build a company that fosters belonging, promotes inclusivity, and models business practices you’d be proud of for years to come, you have to do that work on yourself first. When it comes to how a company culture organically forms, the majority of it comes from the people at the top - how they act, what they tolerate, and what they value. So if your company is a reflection of you and the clarity of your values, what do you want it to show?
For me, I want to create an environment that is welcoming and inspirational - a place where everyone feels like they play a part in making the world a better place. And while I plan to do that by working on myself - I plan to do that with my business by questioning everything and making choices that radically change the landscape for the better.
But in the meantime, it’s time for self care through wildflowers and sunshine!
Picture from our 2024 early wildflower season. In a few weeks, this place will be covered in flowers!
Leila Kaneda
Co-Founder and CTO
she/her/hers
