Canadian geek in Myanmar

I woke up this morning to one of those nasty, horrible days every entrepreneur goes through. The one where it’s all too much and you just want to huddle in the shower and never emerge.  But this time it wasn’t about the current venture I’m working on. As a matter of fact, that is going very well and I am incredibly excited about the idea and the team executing against it.  What got me this time was looking at last year and thinking that everything I touched in 2014 was a huge, fat fail.  This is exactly why I don’t look in the rearview mirror! I sat around this morning wondering why the hell I am even considering doing this again. Surely I was the world’s biggest masochist to open myself to the same kind of betrayal and heartbreak from 2014.

A few hours into my day and several chats with friends and family later, I’m feeling a lot more balanced.  I’ve been reminded that while i don’t have anything physically to show for my efforts on 2014, I do have a lot more experience and strength. I also have a fuller life with hobbies I enjoy. Besides all of that, and the most important thing of all, I have amazing friends and family who are there to catch me, remind me that I’m great and nudge me on my way again.

I met a young girl earlier this week who is interested in becoming an entrepreneur and I told her to go find some entrepreneur friends. Surround herself with people who will understand what she’s going to go through. Entrepreneurship is truly the loneliest journey you can take so you need to make sure that you build pit stops along the way with people who will nudge you on, no matter how much you want to wallow, who high five you at the wins and hug you at the fails.  This is especially true if you’re doing this while single.  There’s no one there at the end of the day to catch you when you want to fall so you need to make sure that you build a strong safety net you can rely on.

On the reverse note of all the above, being an entrepreneur is also one of the funnest and most rewarding things you can do too.  The roller coaster ride is intense, which is probably why some of us do this more than once.  I am a huge supporter of people who want to join this journey.  Just do it safely. Find some outlets for stress relief. Build your pit stops. Surround yourself with your champions.  And remember, it’s okay to wallow every once in a while too. And if all this fails, read the “forgive yourself” lesson from the previous post 🙂

Now I’m going to just fucking get on with it.