Do you remember the last time you experienced being significantly challenged in your business?
Did you have a tight group of successful and committed comrades to provide their laser-focused insight to help you through?
There’s nothing quite like it.
The Member in focus at today’s Thursday HotSeat on Zoom was visibly moved by the amount of support, solutions, ideas and advice that he received from the other Club Members, in response to his request for help with a particular challenge he was experiencing in his business.
He closed out our meeting with a tear in his eye, as he thanked the other attendees from the bottom of his heart for their comradery and help.
However, it doesn’t often happen this way in normal life or business..
In fact, it seems that many entrepreneurs and business leaders may be silently craving company, support, valuable conversation and accountability from people who are able to relate.
Dr Pragya Agarwal, an Inclusivity Consultant and Behavioural Scientist, wrote an article for Forbes in 2018 called It Is Time We Acknowledged Loneliness in Entrepreneurs And Did Something About It, stating that ‘Research has shown that entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey. It is, however, mostly ignored and rarely discussed.’
She also explains that ‘In the Self-Employment Review conducted by Julie Deane, the founder of Cambridge Satchel Company in the UK, isolation was cited as one of the biggest challenges faced by business owners and sole traders, with almost 30 percent of respondents saying that it was either “a big problem” or “something of a problem”.’
The results of a 2016 study into ‘The psychological costs of owning and managing a small-to-medium enterprise: Linking job stressors, occupational loneliness, entrepreneurial orientation and burnout’ also showed that job stressors predicted burnout through a feeling of occupational loneliness.
Recently, I met with a guy who is very successful in the bitcoin space and is connected to lots of the ‘who’s who’ in Silicon Valley. He concurs that having knowledgeable friends is not the same as being part of a structured group which has been created for the purpose of supporting collective success.
It seems that many entrepreneurs and business leaders are lacking the strategies to adequately service the need for like-minded comrades.
Perhaps the natural traits of resilience, independence and resourcefulness, which are prevalent in entrepreneurs and business leaders, mask the feelings of isolation in some cases?
It definitely can be lonely at the top.
It doesn’t have to be.
