Sherry Walling: “Don’t Burn-up in the Launch: Staying Emotionally and Relationally Healthy While Launching Your Startup” – MicroConf Europe 2013

The MicroConf Europe 2013 Hub Page with all the information can be found here

Speaker: Sherry Walling (@zenfounder)

The Transition Year 2007

• Rob’s transition from employee to entrepreneur
• Sherry gets her residency
• Fighting every evening over whether to get a divorce and how to do it

Lessons Learned from that year

1. Manage anxiety
2. Invest well
3. Go all in

Manage Anxiety

• We didn’t recognize that we weren’t doing well. Too focused on our jobs
• Study: Entrepreneurs are more likely to get prescribed anxiety medication than control group
• Anxiety is:
  • unavoidable
  • (can be) useful
  • (can be) deadly
• Yerkes-Dodson law:
  • low OR high arousal / anxiety leads to poor performance
  • moderate arousal / anxiety leads to great performance
  • Sweet spot is “lower” for high difficulty task than for easy tasks
• Signs of Anxiety
  • Mind won’t stop
  • Muscle tension
  • Digestive problems
  • Sleeplessness
  • Increased heart rate
  • Irritability
  • Feeling frantic, distracted
• Results of Unmanaged Anxiety
  • Damages Creativity, Concentration, Organization, Problem-solving and communication skills
  • Damages health
  • Linked to family violence, addiction, and risk of suicide
  • Too much anxiety for too long is bad for your business AND your life
• How do you know when your anxiety is unmanaged?
  • You can’t shut it off (can’t focus on anything else)
  • Eating more / less
  • Haven’t had sex in two months

Managing Anxiety

• Notice it!
  • Track the metrics (There’s an app for that)
  • Pay attention to your behaviour
• Breathe
  • Anxiety is mainly a body reaction
  • focusing & telling your body it is OK to relax, will actually help
• Double check it
  • Ask yourself “why?” – is it real or are you just getting used to being anxious?
• Solve solvable problems
  • Throw money at solvable problems (house cleaning, babysitter, etc)
• Keep track of what is going well
• Take care of yourself
  • Eat well, sleep regularly, exercise
• Same level of planning needed for personal life as for your business life
• Those that care about you will shoulder the burden too. Emotion is contagious

Pre-Launch Communication

• Why are you doing this?
• What will it cost?
• How much involvement?
• How long do we try?
• Plan B?
• How will you know that you are not successful?
• What about the worst case scenario?
• Book recommendation: “For Better or Work: A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and their Families”

Mid-Launch Communication

• Weekly family meeting
• What do each of us need this week?
• How can we solve our solvable problems?
• When is family time?
• Don’t multitask your family

Post-Launch Reassessment

• Take time for important conversations
  • Money
  • Time
  • Vision
  • Roles and expectations
• What is sustainable? What is not?
• Regular “time on your own” about every 6 months: check if you are happy with your life (both entrepreneur + spouse on their own)

Risk Intelligence

• No linear relationship between risk tolerance and entrepreneurial success (Caliendo, Fossen & Kritikos – 2010)
• Persons with low / high risk tolerance are more likely to fail than medium risk tolerance
• Try with smaller numbers, work your way to bigger numbers

Invest in Relationships

• 54% of entrepreneurs have a role model
• 1/3 of the role model users claim that they would not have started their business without this role model
• Master Mind Groups (same ventures, provide mental help for members)
• Invest in others & their dreams (especially your girlfriend / boyfriend)
• Questions to ask yourself:
  • Are you investing in the trust of your partner?
  • Are you investing in your relational network?
  • Are you investing in the dreams of others?
• Don’t put your life on hold indefinitely

Go All In

• Becoming a founder changes everything
• Entrepreneurs enjoy work that fully utilizes their skills and gives them personal autonomy
• Entrepreneurs were less depressed than their 9-5 colleagues
• “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself” – Michel de
• “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other” – Mother Teresa
• See the big picture

-Christoph