Entrepreneuring: The noble walk of truth
Fellow starting entrepreneurs, I just received some of the printed marketing materials – I have flyers and business cards! And the coolest part – bookmarks with the logo and branding of my practice. Yeah, I also have a practice, a coaching and counselling practice.
If you are starting to feel like I am just mumbling while factually listing what is going on in my life, you are getting it right. I have been catching myself in this specific fact listing act quite regularly these days. Listing facts somehow became my mantra – I walk around the park and admire the awakening of nature in the midst of our exceptionally beautiful spring here in the Netherlands and my inner voice keeps rehashing: “I am an entrepreneur”, “I have started my own practice”, “I am building a life that I want to live”. It’s quite meditative. In fact, my partner who has recently become amused by studiously reading Buddhist teachings gave it a just and proportionately grand label: The noble walk of truth.
Resources for academic staff
While Sunflowerful’s blog posts are in development, feel free to check out the blog posts I’ve written while I was working in academia - they allowed me to process some of my most difficult experiences and find meaning in them. Pouring my struggles on paper and translating them into key takeaways and supportive and validating words that are widely available to my peers across the world was my way of digging gold.
The themes center around well-being in academia through the eyes of a struggling PhD, but the challenges and coping mechanisms described can apply to any knowledge-based high-achievement and high-pressure environments beyond the academic community.