I don’t know why I keep telling people to start businesses. It’s really hard and mostly sucks. The problem is that you naturally acclimatise to steady business growth (the good part of the journey), but failure just catches you completely pants down. You need to be ready, resilient and emotionally mature about it. The journey ahead of you is long and filled with woe (South Park reference). You will need to get familiar with facing the darkest demons of your deepest self-doubt, the shadows of your slippery self-confidence, and the complete desolation of regularly not knowing WTF you are actually doing. It’s a treat!

Some examples of hitting rock bottom from my journey:

    • Getting kicked out of a tech incubator for not doing everything the mentors say.

    • Running out of money and begging for it from old school friends (embarrassing).

    • Working a year on a technical integration only to realise it can’t actually do what you need it to end-to-end.

    • Signing a deal with a corporate partner who then achieves 2.5% of the revenue they promised you.

    • Realising that you just lost out on a several million Rand payout because the above milestone was not achieved, and your corporate partner calls it a “learning exercise”.

    • A staff member realising they are irreplaceable right now, and they start to cause trouble.

    • Sunday night when something breaks, after two weeks of extremely high stress, website downtime, late nights and break neck emergency problem solving.

    • Being so exhausted that your short term memory fails you.

    • Being too burnt out to remember why you care.

After that cheerful review, here are the methods that worked well for me in staying functional and emotionally resilient. Note: I did not say “staying strong and kicking butt”. An important part of being a high functioning human is to realise that you are vulnerable, and some days you will dip and others you will rise.

1. Get yourself a therapist: Apart from the benefits for your business journey, it’s definitely the best money you can spend on getting to know yourself personally as a human being. What you will find once you start this journey is that a lot of your problems in business are actually holographic problems that affect your intimate relationships too, and finding ways to address them properly will improve all spheres of your life simultaneously. Think your upbringing didn’t affect your ability to close with a client? Think again.

2. Find your tribe: Whether these are friends, or family, or even other tech start-up leaders, you will need to find people you can be open and honest with. Not all relationships are like this unfortunately. In particular, men are raised (or shaped by society) to hide all their feelings behind a shield, protecting their heart and staying battle-ready at all times. Effectively dealing with business failure means having people you can be completely vulnerable with and really share the pain that you are going through. All they need to do is listen. A problem shared is a problem halved, even if no solution happens. My family are very supportive for me.

3. Defend leave with your life: Our egos love to proclaim that we are workaholics, so busy crushing it, sleeping under our desks and always being super-productive. This work ethic might be sustainable in the beginning stages of a business, or when you are in your twenties, but as your business stretches into years, you need to realise that you are subject to the limits of flesh and blood. You need weekends, you need holidays, and you need to GET AWAY. Your ability to be creative, handle stress and stay motivated depend on regular rest, so make this 100% your first priority.

4. Make a list: We are all different. Some things that make me happy might annoy or confuse someone else. Open a new notepad on your phone and start to keep track of the things that make you happy. You might not have a list upfront, so for now just start the list, and keep adding to it as you live your life. These are non-work pursuits, hobbies, friends, experiences, foods, new interests, music etc. Just write down what you like. Next time you have a wobbly, cultivate compassion for yourself and treat yourself to one or two (or everything) on the list. Use these interventions as a non-chemical anti-depressant.

5. Shout: On your way home from work, driving in your car, just f_ing shout at all the idiots who pissed you off today. What complete assholes they are! Turn your rage into volume. Obviously they are not supposed to be present when you do this. Colourful language is encouraged here. Your goal is to make the driver next to you concerned for your mental health and change lanes to escape. Try this. It works very effectively, and very fast.

6. Meditation: Treat yourself to a proper in-person meditation course with an actual teacher who appears peaceful. They are probably wearing a robe or white when you meet them. They will teach you something super simple, but paradoxically super difficult too. It will literally change your mind. You will build incredible resilience, enjoy increased productivity, a solid baseline of peace, perspective and compassion. Steve Jobs was a hippy. Next time you hit the emotional pavement, sit yourself in lotus pose, close your eyes and stare your problem square in the face. It will dissolve quickly.

7. Delivery pizza: Enough said!