Your Mind Impacts Your Business

September 23rd, 2024

Romanian entrepreneurial spirit is on its rise, but has been there all along country’s past, numbed by historical events that continuously blocked people’s potential for growth

Romanians are genuinely born explorers, people with creative minds and lots of good ideas which they often failed to implement given the lack of trust and encouragement they faced day by day within Romanian society

Still, today, we may say the Romanian entrepreneurs managed to step out of the dark zone of discouragement and lack of trust. They evolved from being “those who struggle to make good by force" towards being those who carry the economical development of Romania, as a whole.

The quality of Romanian services, products, industry has improved significantly, so as the power of the Romanian company. Therefore, at the moment, the engines are all power up for expansion outside country’s borders as well.

There is a reality, however, that stays on the life, shoulders, mind and emotions of those that were crazy enough to risk their peace of mind so as to transform their dreams into reality. With a significant cost on their mental health

The study we conducted on the request of start-up.ro shows that mental health is middle priority for Romanian entrepreneurs, as growing their business, having cash, paying taxes and taking care of the employees appear to be more important

However,90%of the interviewed entrepreneurs say they suffer of stress. 7 out of 10 say they face anxiety or irritability, 5 our of 10 say they face fury and, most importantly, 35% say they faced depression. This is not a peaceful way of living and, unfortunately, entrepreneurs can not prioritise their mental health as too much of their energy is placed into keeping the business alive and growing.

The state is perceived as the main aggressor of entrepreneurs in Romania. The level of taxes, the bureaucracy and inefficiency of the state, the legislative unpredictability drives companies into chaos and continuous business rearrangement, which triggers instability, inconsistence in growth and erosion of their mental or physical health.

Talking about mental health issues or emotional instability is not safe for the business. Nobody trust a business when the owner is “sick”. Obviously, empathy is a “foreign”word in the business world, as money rule everything there. That despite the fact that businesses are also ruled by living people, not robots.

There is a pressing need for control in any business, irrespective of how stressful it is. The entrepreneurs genuinely believe that if they are not involved, the business, their life, their safety will collapse. Which adds supplementary sources of stress as they can not relax: ¼ say they can not relax at all when on holiday and 8/10say they’ve send work emails when on vacation.

When talking about mental health there are not many solutions available for the business segment. The stories happen behind closed doors and they are not openly addressed or discussed so as not to jeopardies the reputation of the company. An entrepreneur should appear as a super-hero, intangible and strong, in the eyes of his employees as well as clients.Complaining, expressing vulnerability, pointing problems makes him a non-valid, problematic business partner. So, what to do? Many just carry on, assuming the consequences of choosing this path

There is however more openness these days for addressing publicly subjects related to the emotional stability of entrepreneurs. Training, coaches, therapists. But what was interesting in our survey was that one direction would help them a lot is that of regular meetings with other entrepreneurs where they could safely share their experiences and look for potential solutions from others’ stories.70% of those we interviewed said meeting other entrepreneurs helps them a lot in building coping mechanisms for stress. “We are all in the same pot, we share the same experiences, there is not a place of shame or judgement”

Any event on the subject of mental health helps. When we open this subject in business, that’s easing a lot entrepreneurs’ way forward. It is a way to contribute as well to the value they bring to the economy and to the growth the produce in the society, as well as in our lives.

For more details on the survey, we kindly invite you to download the presentation of the survey in the download section of empath.com.ro

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