Stress management is a combination of juggling priorities and energy balance.

It’s a sophisticated topic by itself. My best advice for people dreaming of entrepreneurship is joining a fast-paced environment that is stress-tolerant.

Handling stress is a skill by itself. Coming unprepared to entrepreneurship may be a massive culture shock.

And stress is caused by the inability to handle and process problems, along with preparing an action plan for resolving them.

Entrepreneurship is a continuous journey and failure is merely a part of the process.

You will lose some clients.
Potential partners will sign deals with your competitors.
Some of your employees will quit at the worst possible moment.
I often joke that we’re either running out of cash or unable to handle all of the workload. There’s rarely a middle ground - and it’s always the calm before the storm.

A transitional period is one of the best teachers. Career growth, freelance, consulting, a small business, a large product.

Being able to handle smaller responsibilities at first is a bit more manageable than working for minimum wage and suddenly joining an organization as a financial director dealing with tens of millions of dollars in transactions weekly (figuratively speaking).

In terms of decompressing, to each their own. Some can recharge best during family time. Others pick a sport. Or read a book. Or go out for the night and get completely wasted at some club.

Former experience in a stressful environment as a non-executive is a good alternative to test yourself, measure your stress levels, and find a way to balance your energy for maximum performance and longevity.

And, with time, it gets easier. You grow a thick skin.

At first, you get stressed out when something small fails. Then it takes 5 things instead of one to stress you out, then it’s 10 things instead of five.

A massively chaotic process.

You lose a major client. The company is going down hill.

Suddenly, you find a new, better alternative and make it work.

That scenario may occur 5 times over the course of a single month. As long as you push hard and keep hustling, it becomes a repetitive process.

You become much better at risk management. Finances are tracked closely. New ventures are measured properly. Processes are designed to reduce the probability of failure in certain departments.

It’s a lot of crash and burn - but great entrepreneurs learn their lessons and introduce preventive mechanisms for the long term.