I underestimated my level of stress when leaving my job. Financially, emotionally and mentally, my stress level increased. I worried about the next inflow of capital. I worried about being able to pay my bills. Could I spend $10 on lunch? Maybe I should eat at home instead. Anything it was possible to worry about, I did. Up until a few days ago.
Stress is a dangerous thing. Not only does it affect your mental state, but it affects your physical state too. Under stress, my body produces excessive amounts of stomach acid and I experience severe indigestion. The whole experience is quite uncomfortable. When I have it for a prolonged period, I start to realize I am stressed and then it gets worse! This reaction to stress is ridiculous and unproductive. For me, managing stress is essential for physical and mental health.
If it were easy and comfortable to be entrepreneurial, many more would do it. It is not easy and it is not comfortable. The stresses, however, can be overcome.
The root cause of my stress is FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt. For example:
I fear that I will fail.
Im uncertain if I will be able to pay my mortgage in 6 months.
I have doubts about my own abilities.
Every single one of those notions is utter nonsense. Naysayers around you seed your mind with these thoughts. Don’t listen to them! Others criticisms of you are rooted in jealousy and lack of confidence. They contradict what you know to be true:
“I will be successful. I will achieve my goals. I will meet and exceed my expectations�
This doesnt mean to say that you overcome stresses purely with your mind. Taking action to deal with stress is a large part of it. There are several things that I did to lower my sources of stress and enable me to focus on my startup.
- I transferred in excess of my credit card balance to a 0% interest card for 12 months. This allows me to leave my cash reserves as is in case of a serious emergency. Moving has been expensive. It cost me more than $3000 to move to Boston. These are expenses that I hate paying, but they are necessary and you need to bite the bullet and do things correctly.
- Not rushing into a new lease / mortgage (if you’re moving). If you’ve laid the groundwork, you already have a large network of friends around the country. I am subletting one of my friend’s apartment while he is in India on a consulting gig. That gives me 3 months to look for the “rightâ€? place to live for the next year.
- Find people you trust and offload responsibilities to them. I am starting two companies at the same time! My “Top Startupâ€? and my real estate company (at the moment, there is just one property). In order to rent my Texas house out, I needed to find a property manager, a carpeting guy, insurance, paint, tenants etc… For the property manager, I went with my friend and Real-Estate agent, Nelson. I trust him and he is great at what he does. He’s not yet experienced in property management, but I know he will do right by me. For carpeting, I went with a company that is about 5 minutes away from my property where I liked the way the guy explained different carpet qualities and advised me to get the cheapest carpet for my rental. They were less expensive and more knowledgeable than Home Depot. I used the same insurance company I used for my homeowners insurance and they got me a rate that was comparable. For paint, I went to the closest place – Sherwin-Williams, also 5 minutes away. Tenants, I used craigslist. This saved me money (no fees) and it is a great way to find people to fill your place. By going with people and companies I am familiar with, I am able to get things done in half the time. It may not be bottom dollar, but how much is your time and energy worth? I will take this same mentality to our company. There is a point of diminishing returns with each incrementally “betterâ€? deal you find.
In addition to clever ways to reduce stress and increase productivity, there is also a larger idea that I know will help:
Your thoughts influence what happens to you.
This may be a tough one to swallow. The basic premise is that people who think bad things will happen to them HAVE bad things happen to them. People who think good things will happen to them HAVE good things happen to them. I have had a strong belief in the power of positive thinking for a while and I recently had this reaffirmed in the movie “The Secretâ€?. As a side note. I am writing this from First Class aboard a continental airlines flight. I didnt pay for first class, I was upgraded. Why was I upgraded over everyone else on the flight? It’s probably a combination of my frequent flyer status, the fact that I checked in online for my flight and the fact that I want to sit in first class and I believe I deserve the things I want.
I also believe I will be successful. I believe that my team will build a successful company and make my investors and my partners very wealthy. I know these things will happen because I believe them to be true. That statement will sound strange to the large number of skeptics in the world. It is true. It will happen. Keep watching this space to find out how.
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