Being an entrepreneur has never been more desirable, and I should know because I am one.
At 34 I have ticked a good few boxes: I’ve had an exit, a failed business, raised more than half a million dollars for three different businesses and now run two startups with global ambitions.
But despite living what some might think is the “entrepreneurial dream”, I have suffered from very bad depression throughout all of my success and failures.
We aren’t meant to be a success and suffer from depression. Just like many others, I had lots of probably outdated misconceptions about depression and thought it would never affect someone like me. Yet I was running a business with 25 people when I first discovered I was suffering from it.
In truth I’d had it for years, but because I worked in startups I just called it “stress” or “burnout”. But when the doctor said the word “depression” I was shocked. Angry, even. How could you have depression if you had a booming startup, a nice house, great friends and a lovely car?
I’d been able to hide it for years, even from myself, because I had been working so hard. But when I started getting panic attacks, having to stay in bed for days at a time and generally working under a cloud of fog, I knew I needed to do something about it.
There were times when I’d be perfectly fine at my desk one minute, and the next minute in a team meeting my head would start spinning, and I’d have to get out and race home to get under the covers in bed. Lock myself away from the world.
The reality is that one in four people will suffer from depression, or some form of mental illness, in their lifetime. With those sorts of stats, it is inevitable that some startup founders, entrepreneurs and employees will suffer from it.
Given the huge pressure that most founders come under during the early days of a business, it is actually even more likely that they’ll get it. I didn’t know what it was before, but now I know the signs I see it happen to people all the time. It is such a taboo subject though that nobody ever wants to talk about it because of the fear of being seen as a failure.
It is hard enough to talk about it in normal life, but combine it with the bravado of the startup world and it means there are thousands of people struggling away every day. Not being able to talk about it only compounds the pressure.
The good news is that for most it is easily treated. I was able to take medication and work through therapy to get over it and manage it. My businesses are thriving as a result of pulling through, but I do worry about others who have nobody to speak to.
The most important thing from experience is to deal with it and talk to people – a friend, a co-founder or family. I decided to write a book and talk openly about this, in the hope that it might help even one person.
The odds against a startup succeeding are slim enough, and those pressures often catch up on people and result in depression. I’m proof that with proper help and support the cloud can start to lift – and entrepreneurs can continue their plans for world domination.
- Niall Harbison is a Irish entrepreneur who co-founded Simply Zesty and is now CEO of PR Slides. His book Get Sh*t Done was published in June 2014.
