What is entrepreneur wellness?
Entrepreneur wellness is a balance between self-care and management of your business. It is made up of three key elements; Health, happiness and key, relevant self-care – in all areas of your life. I have been an entrepreneur on and off throughout most of my life. I’ve had 10 years working in teaching and training, but I’ve also worked in business and industry. I am from a family of entrepreneurs. Both my parents were entrepreneurs and from a very early age, that is what I knew growing up. It’s no coincidence that I have taken that journey myself. It’s certainly had all sorts of peaks, troughs and successes. Throughout being an entrepreneur and doing a lot of research about the life of an entrepreneur, I’ve found that many people seem to fall into being a business entrepreneur. It may not be what they set out to do originally and it sometimes isn’t even an active choice. Maybe they’ve had a lifestyle change, maybe something’s happened in their family, maybe they’ve lost their job, been made redundant. As a result, people tend to go into survival mode and fall into the business world without necessarily having the skills, knowledge or background to be able to cope, let alone make it a success. Only 20% of businesses succeed past the first year of trading. With a statistic like that it is obvious that people need to do more to help themselves and their businesses reach their full potential. I have only learned these lessons over the years of being an entrepreneur which has given me key insights and practical tools to use for me, my business and my clients. I am passionate about being able to share these finding with those looking to embark on an entrepreneurial journey or those looking to make their business and life more successful. At the Wolf Coaching Organisational we have developed core principles to live by to achieve entrepreneur wellness, some of which I will share with you today.
What is Self-Care?
The first of many things that I’d like to highlight is self-care. Looking after yourself, the management of your health, happiness, your business, your fitness, friends, family – all these things fall under the heading, self-care and are absolutely key. The formula I have devised is based on core principles of entrepreneur wellness. Finding a balance in business is never easy; however, prioritising you is the first step to making yourself accountable. At The Wolf Coaching Organisation that ‘Wellness is first for you, and then your business. Especially when you are your business.’
A healthy entrepreneur
Being an entrepreneur can be very an exciting and incredibly exhilarating journey giving you the opportunity to bring your business ideas and visions to life. But it is not for the feint hearted. In order to succeed you need stamina and resilience. You need mental stamina to be able to keep going, but physically if you are not fit and healthy, you also will not be able to focus on your business.
How do you take care of your health? Well, this means everything from getting enough sleep, eating the right food, getting enough exercise to being sure to give yourself a mental break and time out from work for fun and leisure. For me, I have running. When I have a big business challenge or something I want to develop, I will literally get my trainers on and run out in nature. Really connect and get those endorphins going. And generally, do a lot of problem solving as well. The benefits of this activity helps me physically but also gives me the mental head space in which to have a break and work through thoughts in a different environment.
Help yourself to help others
Only once you are fit and healthy are you then ready and able to help others, whether that be your staff or your clients. If you are not at your best, then you can’t offer your best. Relationship building is imperative for a successful business and you need to use all your skills and knowledge to forge and maintain these relationships within your company and your customer base.
Part of taking care your entrepreneur wellness is being sure you have the right support around you. I have realised that you cannot do everything as an entrepreneur you need the right people around you to help you to your best and stay on track, to stay healthy. I have a business coach who has 25 years’ experience behind her and she is really guides me in the right direction when perhaps I have a big business project I am working on, webinars. She really stretches me but keeping an eye I am not pushing myself too hard.
As for my clients, I ensure that I am present and focused each and every time I interact with them to be able to help guide and advise them and create solutions for their unique challenges. That commitment to my clients requires me to be on top form, mentally and physically. I am also a role model for my clients and if I can’t look after myself then I can’t expect my clients to look after themselves.
Keeping a clear vision
When you think about the journey of an entrepreneur it is really quite vast and huge. As a business entrepreneur, it is up to you to lead your business. You have the vision and you have a mission. It’s about holding on to that mission and about really bringing that mission alive. It’s really up to you to drive that vision forward and in a really healthy way. And you are doing that for your staff, and also for your clients.
It is not always easy to keep that business purpose alive and driving forward whilst at the same time, holding your core values. You are your business. It’s about you holding on to your identity in business. At the end of the day, people don’t care how you’re doing it, they want to know why you’re doing it and what it’s bringing about. What’s in it for the clients? What are they going to get back? What are they feeling? Brands are about feeling. My clients come to me because they like what I’m offering. They understand the concept of entrepreneur wellness. Especially for those people who are running relatively small businesses, they understand the importance of actually looking after them and looking after their staff.
Making the right choices
Business is about making the right choices and right decisions. We can really find ourselves making decisions that can have a detrimental effect on our health. Then before we know it, we got in deeper areas which perhaps are not suited and have perhaps taken our eye off the ball of our core business. My core business is very much about entrepreneur wellness. I have developed my brand around entrepreneur wellness and that brand is now beginning to become an international brand. Working with people in Australia, working with people with health and wellness businesses and that is very exciting and very challenging as well.
Making the right choices also relates to making good financial decisions and investments, managing business partnerships, and aligning your decisions with your business plan. You always want to ensure you are making decisions that will reinforce and support your unique sales proposition.
Measuring Success
Success is not just about money, especially for those entrepreneurs who have dedicated their lives to their business. Every entrepreneur has their own measure of success but usually it is not just monetary gains that people find makes them happy.For many nurturing relationships and growing business relationships are absolutely key and these business relationships grow from trust, referral, building relationships, giving customers value, giving customers a business vision and giving them a purpose. All these things are key to getting repeat business as well and making you a real success.
For some of my clients, I create international wellness webinars, they want to know that they are getting value for their business and for their clients. My clients also want to know about extra products and things that I’m selling within the business. For example, I record coaching programmes and coaching meditations. Some of them are generic programmes on overcoming limiting beliefs, around wellness. I am also just creating some leadership programmes. All these offerings really add value and they are programmes that are unique to me, my business and what I’m offering. I feel like a success not only because I have valued clients who recommend me and benefit from our relationships but because I can offer them added value and products to help them be a success as well. I measure my success by the success of my clients.Obviously, money is nice too but for my entrepreneur wellness it is more about doing something I am passionate about, helping people I respect and like, and doing something I love each and every day.
Really, to me, to summarise entrepreneur wellness it is about happiness. It is about being the most healthy, fit and supported person you can be so you are ready and able to help your clients. Practising self care and ensuring that you focus on first you and then your business, especially when you are your business. This is the key to success. It sounds complete common sense but trust me, if you focus on your entrepreneur wellness first and foremost, the rest will come.
