Look on the Bright Side of Life

Challenges of Business Growth

Your business is doing quite well.  Despite your feelings of not being good enough, you have started getting customers, and you are getting some great feedback. You know there is a market out there.  You know the business has potential.  But you have now hit a bump.  You have had some challenges.  You feel that you are really just muddling through.  

Combatting Imposter Syndrome

There is no doubt that mindset has a massive part in success, and growing a business can be extremely emotionally draining; but imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to persistently doubt their skills, accomplishments and intellect, despite evidence of  their competence.

Labelling can be unhelpful.  I had not even heard of imposter syndrome when I ran my first business, or before that when I took on a huge challenge when I was recruited by an international travel company, shown my desk outside the CEO’s office with a brief to set up a completely new business unit from scratch. I got on with it one step at a time; learning a zillion new skills along the way and built a team of 10 and revenues of $10m.

Don’t get me wrong, it was hard. Very hard. I had a lot of sleepless nights, worrying about all the things that could drop off the table.  But I learned as I went along, I worked with some amazing people and travelled the world, the biggest educator of all.  Learning how to communicate across language and cultural divides was one of the greatest skills that I learnt.

The Resilient Leader

There are many challenges when it comes to growing a business, but there is nothing quite as emotionally challenging as leading a team.  When I first became a junior manager, many moons ago, I thought everyone was like me.  They wanted to do a good job, they were motivated and wanted to move forward in their careers.  I was wrong.  

The reality was that they often wanted to do the bare minimum before getting down to the pub.  To be fair the work they did was pretty mundane and I was recruited to manage people who had been doing the same thing for years and were bored out of their minds.

When I started to recruit my own people, things started to change and I built my own team who were a lot more motivated as I had taken the time and effort to ensure they were given work that was a good fit for  them and feedback to encourage them to continue learning and developing new skills.

Inevitably it is not all plain sailing.  How often have you had to deliver tough news, deal with other people's stress or help them with adapting to change?  This all requires resilience.  Ignoring your own emotions can erode your own health, performance and relationships.

In 2008 when the banking crisis hit, I was running my first business.  We have a team of 20, and a busy call centre.  The phones stopped ringing overnight.  We had to act fast and reduce our team by 50% if we were going to survive. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  Having 1-2-1 conversations with every single person in the team.  Dealing with their emotional responses with compassion while still being clear, firm and realistic.

How to Develop Emotional Resilience

It is important to acknowledge how you are feeling.  How is your body reacting?.  Stress causes physical symptoms, most frequently headaches and stomach problems or even chest pains and skin rashes. 

My most extreme experience of this was when my partner was diagnosed with cancer at the same time as I was due to go on a business trip to Australia and Asia.  The emotions and conflictions of what I should do caused a massive skin reaction which the doctor assured me was down to stress, which at the time I found hard to believe.  How could something going on in my head make this happen in my body? But  even a much more minor incident like running late for a meeting, stuck on a tube has caused my heart to beat a lot more rapidly than normal.

These experiences have taught me the importance of pausing to listen to your body.  To slow down. Yoga (diaphragmatic breathing) which I learnt many years ago is an excellent technique which can be used anywhere (even standing up on a crowded tube train!) By controlling and regulating your breathing, you can calm your nervous system and slow your heart rate.

Writing things down is another excellent way of untangling all those emotions in your head, especially when they are stopping you from sleeping.  If you are stuck in this cycle, getting up and writing everything down on a piece of paper, which is more therapeutic than typing in my view will get it all out of your head.  Your mind will be cleared and it will be much easier to get back to sleep.

Of course talking things through with someone you trust is also an excellent way to deal with this, and is where a good coach can really help.  They will listen actively, encourage you to come up with your own ideas and solutions as well as giving you some suggestions to help you move forward.

Reframe to Change Your Perspective

Emotionally tough experiences can distort how you see yourself or your situation.  Ask yourself what is the silver lining?  How might this help me grow? Reframing is a more empowering narrative and a great way to take positives from any emotionally challenging situation.  This will build resilience which will help you to keep moving forward.  

Treat yourself with the same kindness and compassion that you would to others.  We can be so much harder on ourselves than anyone else.  That little voice in your head is annoyingly negative at times. 

The ‘negative chimp on your shoulder” is a metaphor popularised by Dr Steve Peters, for the impulsive , emotional part of your brain that can sabotage your efforts with negative thoughts and feelings, It represents the part of your mind that can lead to self doubt, fear and procrastination, often interfering with rational decision-making.

Restore to Build Your Energy

You can’t lead well on an empty tank. Protect your emotional reserves by detaching from work, relaxing intentionally , learning something new and reclaiming control of small parts of your day.  These are leadership necessities, not indulgences and essential for your mental and physical health.

We are all different and for me who is someone that  loves a routine, building a healthy routine into my day to day life helps me to keep motivated and resilient.  I am a morning person, and always have a healthy breakfast, spend half an hour doing yoga and then go for a brisk walk; before opening my computer.  I try (and normally fail) to not look at my phone before that.  On the walk I concentrate on staying in the present moment and appreciating the countryside that I am lucky enough to live in.

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