As an Entrepreneur, Nurture Your Brain, Body and Soul Like an Elite Athlete

Being an entrepreneur is hard. Being a venture-backed entrepreneur with the additional expectation of exorbitant growth and an ever-looming cash out date on the horizon is even harder. It’s a never-ending race where every time you reach a summit (i.e. milestone), there’s another even higher hill right in front of you. The stress and pressure you deal with to turn your startup into a ten-year overnight success is hard to cope with. That can have a significant impact on your own health and as a consequence, the health of your startup. To increase your chances of success (and for your own well-being), take care of your brain, body and soul like an elite athlete does.

Most people think building a venture-backed startup is a glamorous endeavor that has a high likelihood of ending with a big windfall for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite like that – it’s extremely hard, takes forever, very few succeed and those that do have a lot of luck along the way. The risks, roadblocks, and psychological challenges involved are enough to deter even the most confident entrepreneur with the best product. While building their startup, entrepreneurs go through the highest highs and lowest lows, experience an insane amount of stress and loneliness, it’s almost impossible to have a sustainable work-life balance, rejections are a constant occurrence and everything takes much longer than expected.

To go back to the analogy of the race, venture-backed entrepreneurship is an ultra-marathon that feels like a constant sprint. Choosing to go down that path oftentimes takes a significant toll on one’s mental and physical well-being. In the middle of the grind, it’s after all very easy to forget about self-care.

However, while deprioritizing for example sleep and exercise for extra work or prioritizing a fast meal over a healthy one can seem like the right choice in the moment, the downstream costs of it are oftentimes significantly higher than we think.

Like elite athletes competing in ultra-marathons, entrepreneurs too do their best work when they take the best care of their brains, bodies and souls.

Taking good self-care sounds obvious and simple. However, most entrepreneurs don’t have the self-awareness, mindfulness, guidance or boundaries to do so consistently.

How Lizelle looks after herself:

• Sleep: The most important dimension of all – our bodies need to sleep to re-charge and heal (similar to a car battery, we can’t be at our best when we’re only 20 or 30 percent charged). Sleep optimization enables maximum brain and body performance! A Whoop is a great source for sleep and recovery feedback and coaching. And make sure to read Matthew Walker’s masterpiece “Why We Sleep”.
• Physical exercise: Developing habits around physical exercise and blocking time in the calendar to get a workout or movement in is absolutely critical to good physical and mental health. Even just a daily walk can be a game changer. High intensity workouts even more so.
• Nutrition: Eating healthy (e.g. avoiding sugars and processed foods) as well as drinking enough water make a big difference. However, what exactly a healthy diet looks like is different for every individual though. Most people don’t understand their bodies well enough to know what, how much and when they should eat to be at their best. Technology such as Levels for blood glucose tracking to maximize diet can be of help here.
• Gut Health: Entrepreneurs are exposed to stress much more than the average person. Stress significantly impacts one’s gut health and it’s thus no surprise that a lot of entrepreneurs experience gut issues. Gut health has a huge impact on whole-body health - it contributes to a strong immune system, heart health, brain health, improved mood, healthy sleep, effective digestion, and it may help prevent some cancers and autoimmune diseases. Thryve is a startup that addresses this with customized probiotics and food recommendations.
• Meditation: Days started with even ten minutes of meditation are better days. It teaches one to look at and observe the mind rather than engaging with what the mind is thinking. Especially for an entrepreneur’s mind which is always in 6th gear, meditating reduces stress and improves focus (amongst many other things). It’s very easy to get started with platforms such as Calm and Headspace.
• Mental awareness and well-being: While building a startup, it’s very hard to talk openly about mental health struggles. If an entrepreneur doesn’t seem invincible, it could have a backlash on the company. At the same time, entrepreneurs have a higher tendency to resort to self-harm, substance abuse and even suicide. What helps Lizelle cope with mental health struggles is to accept that everyone has traumas and different experiences, be in touch with hers and have the self-awareness to become the best leader she is capable of being. She also recommends finding a philosophy / mantra to get through really tough days and to work with a coach. Coa for example offers emotional fitness classes and 1on1s.
• Support: Finding a circle of peers, friends or family to go to for feedback and that call you out when you go off track with regard to self-care are essential to stay on course.

Thank you for sharing this insight Lizelle!

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