With World Mental Health Day over just a few weeks ago, depression is not something to make light of and it is not the intention of the article even as I say it was the best thing to happen to me.
It is a terrible terrible illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts as well as affects the way you eat and sleep, which impacts your ability to do your job and lead a social life.
If your brain is a computer chip and how you think is the operating system, depression can be a virus that can affect not just you, but also friends and family around you. Depression can happen to anyone and it is not about how strong or weak you are.
Founders are 6-11 times more likely to suffer from mental conditions and substance abuse with some studies showing that they are 50 per cent more likely to end in divorce than the general population.
Then why would I say it was the best thing to happen to me as a founder?
Better understanding of how the mind works
Whether it’s the fear of spiders, heights or failures. Every one of us has that one fear we wish we could get rid of. During my period of depression, I began reading apart from many philosophy books but so some psychology books and learned that, for example in interviews with serial killers– most of them do not consider what they did wrong.
If you consider something is wrong would you still want to do it? But what if we cannot trust our minds to tell us what is right or wrong, good or bad, what is illogical or not, how can we be confident of the many decisions we as founders have to make each day?
Take, for example, Survivorship bias: An error that comes from: focusing only on surviving examples, causing us to misjudge a situation. Where Business Insider quoted an instance, where we might think that being an entrepreneur is easy because we haven’t heard of all those who failed.
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By having a better understanding of how the mind works, I found myself being able to make better decisions less guided by bias and emotions. Having just 1 out of the 20 biases they mentioned, you could already already be making a lot of mistakes.
Take, for example, we certainly underestimated how difficult it can be, to acquire some anchor partners because most lenders are always on the lookout for partners that can drive business to them.
Most lenders we managed to speak to found our technology to be helpful to them. But the number of people we had to talk to before we could reach the decision-maker, was something that caught us by surprise.
One company after talking to the head of sales, decided to let his CEO make the decisions who then decided best to let London make the decision.
Another had seven RMs, and five team leaders who reached out but only one dared to connect us to his team head for us to present our capabilities, for the 13th time!
Being a better leader
By having a better understanding of how the mind works, I found myself more sensitive to my people’s needs as well as how they think. As a leader, you cannot know everything underneath the sun and would require capable people to assist and even advise you.
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By understanding how they think, you can better understand when they prefer to do things a certain way, or recommend to do certain stuff, where they are coming from and if it is a suitable move for your company.
Finding the right friends
From an evolutionary perspective, humans are social animals. Our ancestors found safety, protection, and access to resources by forming groups and communities and the need to form social bonds is hardwired into our biology.
While probably better than a decade ago, there is still a lot of ignorance and ill-informed understanding of mental conditions. Sometimes people can be difficult when they are depressed and they do or say things that push people away.
Author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey said we are the average of the seven people closest to us. My depression allowed me to differentiate between, close, good and supportive friends.
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While I miss some memories I had with some friends, I also realised that quality rather than quantity matters and my depression allowed me to find out those who will not judge you, are willing to overlook minor transgressions and who I can count on in life.
Outlook in life
I had always been a workaholic and I think I still am even to this day. Previously I had no idea why I was working so hard. I never considered myself as someone who hankers after material stuff or wealth.
However, my depression changed my outlook on life. It forced me to question my thoughts and what am I truly thinking and why. Now at least when I am working hard I know why
– and that it is equally important to, from time to time, stop and smell the roses with your loved ones.
Having depression or any form of mental condition can be a horrible horrible thing. If you suspect yourself or someone around you to be suffering from one, please consider getting yourself or them, help.
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