Today when we talk of #startups
and entrepreneurs, we are bold enough to talk about the downsides of the
process. We are honest about the high failure rate and the stress it entrepreneurship
involves. Finally only one entrepreneur can understand the other, which is why
sharing experiences amongst ourselves is so important. Here is my bit. Hope it
helps.
While #entrepreneurship
has wonderful success stories to aim for, an #entrepreneur’s life also has
self-doubt looming over a large part of it. It’s not just the fear of failure.
It’s the fear of having failed one’s duty towards one’s near and dear ones –
the family. Men have been coded with the responsibility of being the family
providers. Therefore the tendency of men have been to increase the sense of
safety and security for the family. A regular job is the standard solution to
this role. #Entrepreneurs as a group, therefore carry the burden of being seen
as men who are poor at performing this core function by deliberately putting
their families at risk.
#Entrepreneurs take on #business
stress and then add on to that this stress of worrying about the family’s
future: Do I have enough to see through this year? What if these projects don’t
take off as plan? God! There’s no safety net! Look at the tuition fees for
colleges, will I be able to put my kids through it? What about mortgages?
We spend nights losing
sleep as we toss and turn these questions through our minds. Today research
tells us that #stress is the quiet killer that accounts for most of early
deaths among #entrepreneurs. An interesting statistic is that more men succumb
to stress related issues than women. This is also borne out in a broader truth:
women outlive men in general.
Why is it so? Is it that
women aren’t put in stressful situations? Do the role of women as nurturers
free them from the stress of being providers? Is it some special hormone that’s
inbuilt which helps them fight stress?
The answers to all these
questions I found to my surprise are interlinked. Firstly the moot question is:
Are women put in as many stressful situations as men are?
The answer took me
completely by surprise because it is, simply put:
YES.
And by extension, probably
more so.
Why do I say this?
The answer to the question
is best given by an example. From my own family. When my grandfather died, my
father was just ten. There were seven other siblings in the family which lived
from hand-to-mouth. Did the family disintegrate? Did the children go astray?
No. On the other hand every one of them rose to become highly educated and hold
powerful jobs. How did it happen?
Due to the perseverance
and effort of a woman. An uneducated middle-aged woman, my grandmother. My
father often tells me of their days of struggle. One’s in which he’s observed
his mother selling her meagre jewellery to educate her children. But the one
thing he recalls most strongly about her during those days was her calmness.
She never raised her voice to anyone during those days of penury.
This story is not unique
to my family. Indeed I’ve heard this from countless friends and associates. I’ve
seen families lose male members yet bounce back and I’ve seen women from broken
homes and collapsing marriages recover themselves and rebuild their lives and
those of their children.
How do women do it? By
focusing on the immediate and not worrying about the distant future.
Who has seen the distant
future? Who knows what will happen next year? The intervening time may cause so
many changes that your worries for the future may never occur. Moreover there’s
nothing one can do about a future that’s only a hypothesis at this instant. But
you can do something to affect that outcome if you act on the present.
By acting positively now
you are in fact causing a favourable outcome in the future.
This is what women do unconsciously.
They work hard on the present to make the most of the moment. By continuously
doing so they improve the lot of themselves and their family.
It’s time we men learnt
this from women. And not just that, behaved and began thinking like them in
such moments of stress. There’s no point in thinking too hard about the future
or advancing non-existent worries to our heads. Let’s become women at such
times and mitigate stress.
The philosophers who synthesised
‘Vedanta’ or Hinduism as it is called today probably wanted us to understand
this when they created the concept of God as ‘Ardnareshwar’ or half God-half
Goddess. We have been imbibed with the best qualities of both our parents.
While we men make a great show at displaying the machismo of our fathers, we
shrink from using or displaying the survival skills of our creators, our
mothers. There’s no shame in a man using his mother’s qualities. In fact, the
man who adapts and adopts is the man who survives and flourishes.
So when under stress, have
a mental sex-change, learn from your wife, your mother and from woman kind.
Become one. Think like one. Focus on the immediate and current and leave the
distant future aside. Take life one step at a time and you’ll live long and be
successful in that life.
Which is why we call women
our better halves J
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