I was totally unprepared for this and ill-equipped to navigate.  I found this advice overwhelming, confusing, anxiety-inducing and frequently I found myself paralysed, feeling totally incapable of identifying the right support or knowing how to move forwards. 

Time is money when you are just starting out as a small business and so the fear of loss of revenue from procrastinating or making a wrong decision was all the more acute in those moments.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

It’s an old saying and one that I reference frequently with clients, and adopt frequently as a mantra to myself.  Some of the advice I received in the early days seemed to negate that on day one, or even in year one of setting up a business, you don’t have everything fully in place and ready to go, let alone done and done perfectly.  So much business advice is given flippantly and with implicit expectations and assumptions made about the resources, budget and support; or systems and structures that a small business “should” have in place to operate.

Yes, there are some things you most probably must have in place, like a bank account to receive payments and insurance if your line of business requires it.  But most small businesses and start ups don’t have lots of resources and support in place on day one.  They often don’t have a budget for support and structures because they haven’t started trading and earning yet.  A lack of resources and structures doesn't mean that these businesses cannot begin to trade successfully.  Yet, in my experience, so much of the bad advice I witnessed negated the benefit and the necessity of the experimental phase of starting up, before you have clear systems and structures in place. 

There is so much rich learning that takes place and so many valuable insights that are gained in the start-up phase.  When businesses try to skip over this phase or find short cuts, they may find they experience some early quick wins, but these quick wins are rarely sustainable revenue generators.  Invariably, the hard lessons learned in those first days, months, even years, will stand a business in much better stead over the longer term.

There is value to be gained from iterating your way to perfection. Testing and learning before you land on the actual things that stick.  You can’t get from A to C without going through B first but all too often we discount the value of the process of going from A to B and then to C.

A different way of doing business

But what if there was a way to embrace this challenging phase of starting up with more confidence? What if there was a way to lean into the messy phase with more ease and flow?  What if there was a way to trust what you believe to be right, even when you have no hard evidence that verifies what you just know?  And what if there was a way of reframing uncertainty as experimental, just for the very sake of experiment?!

Trying to navigate and identify genuine, authentic and aligned solutions that were right for me and my business has been one of the hardest things I’ve encountered setting up my own business.

That is why in my line of work; ethical, human and authentic practices are at the heart of everything I do.

Integrity and credibility are things I take great care, attention, time and energy demonstrating so that clients who work with me know exactly what they can expect from me and that they know that at all times, as my clients they are also in the driving seat of the decisions they make about whether or not they work with me.

I’ve heard the same story so many times from new clients who have started to work with me as they share their experience working with business coaches and consultants who didn’t deliver and who didn’t operate by the same ethical and professional standards.  This meant that my clients frequently felt like they didn’t know how to get out of a service or agreement when things weren’t working or that their needs were not being met by the services they had been sold.  In the worst cases, they had spent more money than they were comfortable with, and could afford, with very little value to show for it.

I always ensure that my clients know what they are getting and get it.  And because trust is important, there are clear exit and review points in my services including a “no questions asked” refund policy and uncomplicated break clauses.

Why is what I share relevant on mental health World Mental Health Day?!

The human qualities you need to thrive in business

As the ancient proverb says: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.  This has always been a principle of how I operate.

The work I do focuses on human qualities and human tools that help my clients to manage complexity, uncertainty and navigate difficult decisions and choices with more clarity and confidence.

I help my clients identify and overcome the sabotaging behaviours that cause them to feel overwhelmed, paralysed, anxious, fearful and stressed.

The qualities I help my clients to cultivate include:

• Discernment – how to identify what is true for you in your unique context, not operating from external conditioning
• Agency – identifying the right actions to take and executing them with ease and flow
• Creativity – expanding your awareness and perspectives so you generate different ways of being and doing, in line with your goals and authentic self
• Compassion – cultivating deep compassion for the perfectly imperfect human you are, and compassion for everyone else too

When we cultivate human qualities such as these, we can take action with peace of mind and when we do this, we get better business outcomes and better outcomes for ourselves.

We are all born with these capacities yet we are not routinely taught how to cultivate them and deploy them authentically.

When we cultivate these qualities, we are able to manage our mental health positively, proactively and appropriately based on our unique individuality.  This means we can discern the difference between generic advice and something that might actually stick for us based on our specific context.  

This is why, on World Mental Health Day I am writing this article.

Of course I am a business person and I too experience the same stresses and worries about pipeline and future revenue as other small businesses but I have always believed that the route to being sustainable in business (financially, environmentally and socially) is by focusing on long-term human relationships, human benefits and human value.

I am so passionate about upholding the ethics and integrity of what I do, that I provide access to tools, resources, powerful techniques and insights which are freely available on my website and through other social media channels. Because advice is cheap but access to powerful tools and know-how is invaluable.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.