Balancing mental health with aims of entrepreneurship

Emil Hviid Pedersen, CEO of Mile Sports and Rebekka Gustafson, founder of Human Athlete are working on overcoming the scars of psychological pressure for themselves, and their startups. Anne Sjølund, a startup advisor at The Kitchen, echoes this journey, emphasising the need to create awareness about the importance of mental health: “When something feels off, it often is, then it is important to respond to that.”

An entrepreneur is a coffee-fuelled visionary. Someone who never stops working. They thrive on four hours of sleep, endless meetings and constant networking, juggling responsibilities with pitch meeting and brainstorming events.

This is the stereotype of an entrepreneur, and so, when aspiring entrepreneur try to live up to this cliché, there is a high chance that it leads to burnout: A state of exhaustion – mental, physical, and emotional.

For many entrepreneurs, the constant pressure, long hours, and relentless grind make burnout a familiar experience.

According to the Danish Health Authority’s rapport about the National Health Profile 2021, stress was most occurring amongst entrepreneur and highly educated people. And a total of 29% of all Danes felt stress that year.

But there is help to be found.

Input versus output

Anne Sjølund works as a startup advisor and workshop facilitator at The Kitchen. Wellbeing is a topic she has been interested in for several years.

“Wellbeing is about finding the right balance between one’s physical, mental and emotional health,” Sjølund states.

“It is a balancing act. It is about self-awareness and about listening inwards, checking in with ourselves and recognising our needs,” says Sjølund

Which is something that a lot of entrepreneurs tend to forget in their busy everyday life.

“It all comes down to energy. There needs to be a balance in how much power they (entrepreneurs, ed.) spend on work. To avoid burn out, they must find the energy, maintain it and protect it,” says Sjølund.

At Aarhus University’s startup hub, The Kitchen, Sjølund and her colleagues are trying to break the archetype of the ever-grinding entrepreneur.

“Entrepreneurs at The Kitchen are interesting because they are navigating a high-pressure environment while juggling academic obligations.”

She would like to show that there are different kinds of entrepreneurs and help the ones who would like to break the habit.

“I would like them to understand that they are the most important asset in their startup,” says Sjølund while  underlining that wellbeing is not just a personal priority – it is a strengthening of an entrepreneur’s business.

Two entrepreneurs that have had to deal with pressure are Emil Hviid Pedersen, founder of Mile Sports, a running apparel company, and Rebekka Gustafson, the founder of the podcast ‘Human Athlete’, a podcast series that focuses on humanising elite athletes.

The story of two entrepreneurs

For Emil Hviid Pedersen, the pressure of entrepreneurship hit hard one morning.

It all started in December 2022 as he prepared to launch his first collection, but with manufacturing setbacks came stress.

“Either the energy was there or not. So even though, I was in great physical shape, I could not get up in the morning,” Hviid Pedersen shares.

Broken promises and postponed deadlines made his entrepreneurial journey a Herculean challenge. He put Mile Sports on hold

When he picked up on Mile Sports again, further challenges presented themselves, culminating in a depression diagnosis.

Today, even though he is on antidepressants, his everyday life is under control, and he is on the right path to getting back to ‘normal’.

For Rebekka Gustafson, the pressure started early and long before she entered entrepreneurship.

At the age of 13, she won her first Danish swimming championship. But the success came at the expense of her mental health as self-doubt, high expectations and perfectionism took hold.

“I got tested all the time, which led to thoughts such as “am I too tall or too short?” Gustafson recalls.

“When a trainer screams at you that you are the world’s worst swimmer, you think that it is just part of the game,” says Gustafson, underlining how her mental health was shaped by an unhealthy training environment.

Nowadays, she balances her scars – hormonal problems, overworking and perfectionism – with her mission: To humanise athletes and ask them the questions that she was never asked as an elite athlete.

Entrepreneurship has been a way for Gustafson to cope with pressure – even though the scars are still not fully healed.

Both Pedersen and Gustafson share a story of resilience that reveals the hidden toll of ambition.

Today, they both know the importance of prioritising mental wellbeing.

Finding the positive in the negative

Rebekka Gustafson has spent a lot of time making sure that she knows her limitations and her best workflow.

“You need to know yourself. How do you handle hard situations? What do you do when you are missing money, or you need someone to invest in you?” says Gustafson, emphasizing that preparing oneself for the harder moments as an entrepreneur is necessary.

Being pressured with Mile Sports, Emil Hviid Pedersen has learned a lot about himself.

“I need to prioritise myself, and it is alright if I have an off day,” says Hviid Pedersen.

He has realised the strength of a team.

“Having someone to spare with, someone to celebrate the ups and downs with and someone to relieve you of some of your work if you need to take a day off, is one of my key tips to securing a good mental health”

“Sometime your energy is better spent somewhere else than your startup,” says Hviid Pedersen. Or as Gustafson puts it:

“The work overshadows the love for yourself. And that is dangerous. You need to remember yourself.”

”It is normal to struggle”

Back in The Kitchen, Anne Sjølund is working on workshops about wellbeing methods and reflection exercises for entrepreneurs.

She knows that it is more challenging for the participants when signing up for workshops about wellbeing than the more traditional entrepreneurial ones.

Because it requires a willingness to challenge ourselves and our status quo. Something that a lot of people are often hesitant to do.

“Some people think that self-development is scary, and that if they work on themselves, it will be like opening Pandora’s Box. But that is not how it works,” says Sjølund.

To normalise talking about mental health, engaging the members of The Kitchen is key. To help them start conversations with each other about challenges, everyday hacks, managing workload and so forth.

“We need to talk about not just the startup journey – but also the internal journey that goes on simultaneously. It is normal to struggle, feel alone, discouraged or inadequate,” Sjølund points out.

To her, having a good mental health is the most important asset for an entrepreneur as they are the driving force in their startup.

“I would like to help people to take their wellbeing seriously,” says Sjølund.

“When something feels off, it often is, then it is important to respond to that.”

Sjølund invites all members of The Kitchen to attend the Entrepreneurial Wellbeing workshop on the 27^th of November.