Mental Health and Entrepreneurship

Here’s How Naomi Reversed Her Nervous Breakdown.

Burnout, nervous breakdown, and stroke resulted from her entrepreneurial ambition and reckless decisions. But she fixed her situation, helping others prevent burnout.

Naomi Regretted to Sacrifice Her Health for Entrepreneurship.

Uncontrolled Childhood Dreams Leading to Traumatic Incidents in Danger Zone

Born into a poor family, Naomi faced financial hardship as an innocent child. She was the fifth youngest kid in her underprivileged family that migrated from Poland to Australia in the 1970s.

The scarcity of money was the primary stress factor in their lives. Her mother worked as a shop cleaner in Melbourne city center, and her father as a construction worker in Geelong, later finding factory work in Ford’s Broadmeadows branch.

However, she managed to get a scholarship to pay her college expenses after secondary school. She studied hard and became an electrical engineer with honors. This qualification helped her secure a well-paying job that she initially enjoyed.

She supported her aging parents, who couldn’t work anymore. Also, she helped her four other siblings who couldn’t study and worked as laborers. Supporting her low-income family delighted her and motivated her to earn more.

She desired to study business administration. So she enrolled in a part-time MBA program that she attended after hours and on weekends. Meeting high achievers at the MBA school inspired and motivated her to work even harder.

She kept pushing herself with no break. She moved from the stretch to the risk zone. Still, her ambition kept increasing and forced her to go into the danger zone. This was the proverbial final straw that broke the camel’s back.

Ambition Ruined Naomi’s Health, Making Her Miserable Initially

Since her childhood, Naomi has had a strong passion for becoming an entrepreneur. However, her life circumstances did not allow her to achieve her dream despite multiple attempts in her younger years.

She envied her friends who shared their travel stories as she couldn’t travel in her childhood and not even during her tertiary education. Her parents did not know the concept of a holiday. They believed holidays were only for rich people.

After her studies, she ended up in a corporate engineering job earning a reasonable income to pay her bills and support her family. As the years passed, the initially enjoyable job felt mind-numbing and repetitious for her. Boredom was driving her ambitious mind crazy.

She started disliking her job. Her corporate position did not mean much to her. I agreed with her comment that “when we get bored, the brain tends to stop creativity and goes into protective mode. We feel brain fatigue and physical lethargy.”

After completing her MBA, her ambition to create a new business reached its pinnacle. However, she had knowledge, experience, and aspiration, so it was time to say goodbye to the corporate world and open her own business.

Moreover, she had a few patents that she could turn into products through a start-up company. So, she established a start-up company when she secured some business funds from the bank, using her home as a security for the loan.

In her terms, she jumped into the greener pastures on the other end of the fence too quickly. She believed that her emotions motivated her to make this life-changing decision rather than her rationality.

Initially, leaving the corporate world gave her perceptive freedom, which she cherished. However, it did not last long. She used to work eight hours and was paid well for her engineering service. As a result, her stress level was low, but her boredom was high. She couldn’t properly deal with her boredom denying and suppressing it.

As soon as she established her start-up company, her work hours doubled. She started working 16 hours non-stop. She showed a workaholic’s tendency to keep her mind active and reduce boredom which she couldn’t tolerate for many years.

However, boredom was replaced with even stronger and more destructive emotions like frustration, disappointment, annoyance, and anger.

Despite her hard work, everything went wrong. The harder she worked, the more setbacks she faced. Each unresolved setback added more fuel to her chronic stress.

She not only wasted the funds she borrowed from the bank, but she also went into more debt during her failed products' R&D and manufacturing process. She had to do everything herself as her business couldn’t generate any income. To create urgent income for her company, she started several side hustles, worsening her situation.

Her chronic stress was fueled by emotional stress caused by destructive and suppressed emotions and had started manifesting as physical and psychological ailments. She noticed her burnout.

Her body couldn’t cope, informing her to stop. But her motto that she learned in the MBA school was never to give up. Her cognitive brain was denying and suppressing important messages from the body.

Finally, she had a nervous breakdown and a stroke. Her physical and mental illness required long-term hospitalization. She was advised to declare bankruptcy which she had to do in desperation.

Unfortunately, she had no private healthcare to cover the medical cost. However, fortunately, a charity organization, through a social worker’s help, managed to get her a government pension.

She said the social worker was an angel who appeared in her life at the right time. In hindsight, she thought that the stroke was the best thing that happened to her, allowing a new realization needed to find her true self and leading to a life transformation.

The social worker organized several empowering support systems for her to start a new life. One of the critical tools for her healing was psychotherapy to resolve the childhood traumas buried in her psyche.

The second one was a life coach who assisted her in creating a business plan for a new career.

As she did not want to go into the corporate world, the plan included creating a consulting company as a sole proprietorship to advise electrical engineers. Her formal education as an MBA graduate and her experience in a failed start-up company made her a well-informed, empathetic, and compassionate consultant.

Helping other people gave her tremendous joy while increasing her self-love, self-compassion, and self-esteem. The therapy sessions also contributed to her learning to love herself, which has also increased her ability to display love to and for others, all of which had to some extent been missing from her life.

Her new career not only eliminated the boredom and chronic stress but helped her to find her true self.

Being rich was not what she needed. What she needed was self-fulfillment. This realization wouldn’t happen without experimentation. She now sees that having a nervous breakdown and stroke amplified the authentic voice she had to hear.

Takeaways for Aspiring Entrepreneurs to Prevent Burnout Effectively

I asked Naomi what advice she would give to people who might be suffering as she did. My goal was to learn from her experience to prevent burnout for ambitious entrepreneurs and create a fulfilling life strategy. She made a few insightful comments that I summarized below.

Entrepreneurship might look sexy from the outset, but nothing is sexy about it. This enviable position is not for everyone. It requires serious life trade-offs. Modeling others and learning from them is excellent.

However, we are all individuals. Everyone has a different capacity and capability. Comparing ourselves with successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos is a massive mistake that aspiring entrepreneurs make.

The biggest mistake in her decision-making was due to emotion rather than logic in her first attempt. If she had handled the boredom and not allowed it to cause wrong decisions taking wrong actions, she wouldn’t have experienced such as traumatic life.

If she had the chance to go back in time and become an entrepreneur again, she would first create the foundation with a delegation system. Working 16 hours doing everything alone with no delegation is not a sustainable lifestyle. She said we were not machines.

I agree that we are biological beings with blood and flesh. The body tells us when enough is enough. Rejecting valuable messages of the body causes nothing but disaster.

She believed we might have multiple skills, but realistically none of us could cover all skills needed for a business. Initially, doubling work could be tolerable. However, it cannot work in the long run, leading to burnout. Chronic stress is the root cause of physical and mental ailments. Her stroke was the cause of burnout after the nervous breakdown.

The final point sounded compelling to me. She said those with entrepreneurial spirits who work for corporate organizations have another alternative. For example, she said, leaving the ego on one side, it is possible to express entrepreneurial ambition by being an intrapreneur who has less risk of creating burnout.

When I asked for clarification on the role of an intrapreneur, she said the owner organization undertakes the risks and heavy lifting of the business.

The concept of intrapreneurship might allow people with an entrepreneurial spirit to focus only on creativity and productivity while corporate organizations shoulder the substantial administrative load and financial risks.

For example, she said intrapreneurs don’t have to create a new client base. They don’t need to establish new marketing, sales, and distribution processes. They don’t have to deal with constant administration.

The costly infrastructure exists and does not require any investment. In hindsight, she could have tried intrapreneurship in her previous position. And only after years of experience and creating fundamentals, would she transition to an entrepreneurial role with her own funds.

Happy Ending for Naomi

The burnout and chronic stress that I experienced in my younger years were not as dramatic as Naomi’s.

So, I mentioned the importance of learning to slow down helped me become more creative and productive paradoxically. She smiled and wholeheartedly agreed on the criticality of slowing down in her life. Ancient wisdom informs us that every cloud comes with a silver lining.

The best part of Naomi’s story was leveraging the sustained income of her consulting company, which allowed her to start very small. She focussed on leveraging a single patent she owned.

She continued to grow incrementally, adding one product at a time. Inspiringly, Naomi achieved her childhood dream after the age of 60. She managed to transform her small start-up company into a unicorn business.

Money was not everything for happiness and fulfillment based on her lessons from past failures. Luckily, slowing down mindfully, Naomi never experienced burnout again. Her emotional maturity and cognitive flexibility significantly increased. She learned to thrive in two optimal zones.

Naomi not only improved her health and life satisfaction but also contributed to preventing the burnout of many aspiring entrepreneurs. She helped them find their best versions, gradually appearing like a protective angel in their lives.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

If you enjoyed this story, you might check the story of Maggie, who came from a poor family but transformed her life. How a Single-Mum Reversed Her Obesity and Built up a Unicorn Business: Health, finance, and life lessons from a 71-year-old wealthy female.

Here’s How a Single Mom Reversed Her Obesity and Built up a Unicorn Business.

Here is the story of another businessperson who looked after his health and balanced their financial life and well-being.

Polymath Entrepreneur Builds Unicorn Business in 3 Years Using Combinatorial Innovation

If you are a new reader and find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.

Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers

I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.

One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.

Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorder, and Major Diseases.

I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:

Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.

Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.

I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.

If you enjoy writing and storytelling, you can join Medium, NewsBreak, and Vocal as a creator to find your voice, reach out to a broad audience, and monetize your content.

You may also check my blog posts about my articles and articles of other writers contributing to my publications on Medium. I share them on my website digitalmehmet.com. Here is my professional bio. You can contact me via weblink.

As a writer, blogger, content developer, and reader, you might join Medium, Vocal Media, NewsBreak, Medium Writing Superstars, Writing Paychecks, WordPress, and Thinkers360 with my referral links. These affiliate links will not cost you extra to join the services.

You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 18K+ writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.

If you enjoy reading, you may join Medium with my referral link for limitless access to my stories and other writers.