What ties all entrepreneurs together? There are lots of reasons to work for yourself, and entrepreneurs are as different in themselves as they are in the reasons behind why they chose to start businesses. Some want to have flexibility in their work hours to better suit their families, others want freedom of work location and control of their work pace and some dream to build a billion-dollar empires. But what unites all is that the desire to work for themselves for whatever reason, outweighs the perceived safety of working for others in a career. Indeed, for many entrepreneurs the feeling of having control over their business is a safer bet in an age of mass redundancies.

Despite this, it still takes an extremely strong person to navigate these waters, and not just a strong person but a very flexible one too. A person who can learn any task they need to in order to succeed. A person with a hunger for success whose determination sees them keep going when others would quit. Often, many successful entrepreneurs are people who have come from extremely difficult backgrounds and have developed resilience and determination well enough to stubbornly keep going when others would give up.

However strong we are though, understanding that the impact of the task we have set ourselves as entrepreneurs is important, and, relying solely on our resilience to cope may be a flawed approach. Flawed, because, as all entrepreneurs know, it is those who make the best use of all the available tools they have at hand who will stand more chance of succeeding in business against their competitors. So, why not make use of other tools as well as our resilience for the stress of starting up a new business?

What sort of tools are these?

We can apply principles of managing underlying issues that cause stress in the same way as more established business can. Accepting that these issues exist and are unlikely to change doesn’t mean necessarily accepting pain or injury that goes with them. Much like a meat packing factory must accept that it requires sharp blades to cut meat, but it should never accept that its workers should face unguarded and unsafe machinery which puts them at risk of injury.

In a special series the next few articles will delve into a few of these tools and set out practical ways that they can be used to help with navigating the world of entrepreneurship and startups.

It is my sincere wish that these methods and tools might aid other startups and support them in becoming the success all who are brave enough to set out on this journey deserve to be.

Next article March – Dealing with stress as an entrepreneur - Part One!