You rarely hear stories of struggle without triumph. This is not one of them. Romanticized as a core skill for navigating challenges and bouncing back from failure, resilience supports entrepreneurs, much like the backbone supports the body–it has to, even when it hurts.
This dark side of resilience, and the toll it takes on the body, mind and spirit, is where I uncomfortably sit after a grueling year of life and business. For those who are enduring their own storms, by now you know there are no easy solutions. Seek out support, in whatever form you can handle. You matter. And while relief may still be far off, take moments to be easy with yourself.
The reality of resilience
When I set out to build Digital Entrepreneur, I envisioned a brand capable of reconnecting entrepreneurs with the joy of business. What I didn’t anticipate was how desperately I would need to cling to that very message.
The journey to launch was mostly made up of challenges. Competing priorities, patchy support and the sudden departure of a team member two months before launch left me with endless gaps to manage. There were no breaks, no safety nets. I stepped up because I felt I had to; there was no other option.
Then came life’s most piercing blows. My grandmother passed away. I discovered I was pregnant, and I felt like sharing this news would make life at work worse.
This is the point where advice like “remember your why” usually enters the scene. And I did. I clung to the desire to not only help entrepreneurs find their joy again but to be a champion of joy myself. The intangible power of purpose didn’t work for me, but a few tenacious actions helped.
The reality of resilience is sometimes, you’re not just going through it once; you keep going through it. My marriage, already on shaky ground, progressively frayed. I parted ways with a partner I thought would be in our life as a co-parent. My experience at work continued to be productive in private conversations but disjointed in all the ways that mattered.
Somehow, I kept moving forward. And entrepreneurs navigating the storm of life and business somehow keep moving forward too.
The carrot is actually the stick
Despite managing to pull off what felt like an impossible launch, the victory felt hollow. The days following weren’t filled with celebrations or the joy of success. I never even shared an official launch post on my social channels.
Instead, my thoughts were consumed by what’s next. Twelve to 16 hour days of it in fact. I had a brand to manage and another bonus to earn. A little more suffering wouldn’t hurt, right? Eventually, I’d bounce back. This is the chase I found myself trapped in, at work and at home.
If I show all of the work that goes into daily operations, I can prove I need the support I’ve been asking for.
If I say yes to camping when I need to focus on work, I can affirm the importance of my partner’s needs in a way that shows how to affirm mine.
If I just keep doing what needs to be done, despite my grief and values, soon I’ll [insert whatever aspirational, out-of-reach thing I expected my resilience to attain].
Much of my perception of resilience relied on the hope that there’s a reward at the end of suffering. Even if that reward is simply relief. But seven weeks before taking a year of parental leave, and nine weeks from my baby's birth, I’m still very much in the thick of it.
Another sudden and unexpected death, this time my cousin, reopened the feeling of loss I’ve been feeling on so many levels this year. And things are starting to get confusing now that the very things causing me stress have begun to show signs of support. It gives me hope that things are shifting for the better but cuts even more deeply the next time words once again don’t match actions.
My experience of resilience has shifted from this big capacity to withstand, this default programming to get out of survival mode and thrive, to quite literally giving less f*cks.
And after investing countless hours in conversations and counseling, thousands of dollars in executive coaching and boatloads of practice in self-advocacy, I’m actively working to leave the sticks posing as carrots behind.
The stigma of sharing hurt publicly
There were moments when I publicly shared what was happening behind the scenes. But the stigma of vulnerability often prompts uncertainty: Just how much hurt can be held out loud? How much of our struggles can or should be shared? And does sharing truly make a difference?
I’ll admit that I took pride in staying rational in the face of irrational circumstances. Vulnerability, I believed, needed to be compounded with logic. For me, any public admission of vulnerability would need to include a plan for the way forward or optimism that things would indeed get better.
I don’t have this knowledge. And I won’t pretend to have that faith. I mostly soldier on. And yes, it hurts.
After what I’ve been through this year, I’m almost certain that resilience isn’t what I thought it was. It’s not a matter of staying composed when things don’t go as planned. It’s not about disguising struggle as strength.
Because whether you spiral and suffer in silence, or shout about your pain from the social media rooftops–the bad luck, the exhaustion, the unfairness, etc., will always be a part of life and business.
Resilience is the acceptance of this reality and allowing yourself to live in the midst of it rather than believing you can avoid or run past it.