According to the National Institutes of Health, April is recognized as National Stress Awareness Month to bring attention to the negative impact of stress. Managing stress is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. Knowing how to manage stress can improve mental and physical well-being as well as minimize exacerbation of health-related issues. According to the NIH website, It's critical to recognize what stress and anxiety look like, take steps to build resilience, and know where to go for help. The Mental Health American (MHA) provides some tips on how to reduce your stress by utilizing a Stress Screener. Also, take some time to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website and familiarize yourself with strategies for stress management.
By: Steven M. Stroum
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., April 2, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Prior to becoming an entrepreneur I had several jobs, worked for other people and through acts of my own as well as various supervisors, my life was stressful. Since my stress revolved around work, I wanted to be certain that I was in the right field and doing the right kind of work. So, I sought vocational counseling and that's where I became aware of The Strong Interest Inventory assessment which helps individuals identify their work personality by exploring their interests in six broad areas: realistic, artistic, investigative, social, enterprising, and conventional.
For me, The Strong Interest Inventory assessment validated that I was doing the right thing, but I was in the wrong field. It indicated that I identified most strongly with an advertising executive and ultimately I created a business as a product publicist. Publicity is a close relative to advertising. I get news published about my clients' products in various media which advertisers subsequently use to target their audiences. The big difference is that my clients are in the non-paid news sections of the media.
Managing stress was essential for me. The process of starting a business was exciting, not stressful. Besides, I was a working-class kid who had nothing to lose. Ironically, one of the things that became stressful was my meteoric early success. I started my business in 1976 at the age of 28 with only $300, had 10 fulltime employees within 10 months, and earned over $100,000 (equivalent to $600,000 today) in my second year. Rather than becoming elated, though, I became severely depressed and ultimately would understand why with the help of an incredible therapist. I share this multi-year experience in detail in my book, "Success and Self-Discovery: A Business Memoir with Insightful Tips and Personal Advice that will Help any Entrepreneur." Not only the insights from therapy, but from many other experiences too and the things I did to cope and grow as a person and businessman.
As an entrepreneur I became exposed to situations that were very stressful. According to the American Psychological Association, there are three types of stress: acute stress, episodic acute stress, and chronic stress which can all make us feel out of sorts or even ill, but chronic stress is often ignored. Acute stress is the most common, is short-term, comes on suddenly; episodic stress which is recurring to people overloaded with responsibilities and schedules, and the third type is chronic which is caused by long-term exposure to stressors.
In retrospect, I experienced all three of these stressors. The first was when I hired my brother to work for my company. It was the biggest mistake of my business life. Rather than creating a job description with specific tasks that needed to be performed, I hired my older brother. Not surprisingly, he wasn't the right person for the job and didn't share the same enthusiasm for the business that I did. The acute stress came when I was faced with the decision to terminate him or face losing my business.
I recovered nicely from the aforementioned mistake. My brother moved on, the stress dissipated, my business continued to grow nicely, and I was selected to tour South Korea as an Ambassador for the International Rotary Foundation. While preparing to leave for eight weeks, my creative director and key employee hugged me, actually cried, told me that I was more a brother to him than his own brother, and assured me that he would take good care of my business while I was away and not to worry about anything. What's more, his mother-in-law would move into my home and babysit for our son while my wife met me in Hawaii for a couple of weeks to get reacquainted.
The trip to Korea was exciting and I dedicated a full chapter to it in my book, along with a description of the betrayal by my creative director who actually stole several clients while I was away to start his own business, despite his hugs, tears, and proclamations. Well, this betrayal was so beyond the pale that it caused me to return to therapy. I just didn't want to believe it! It created incredible stress.
My business memoir is a mix of these types of personal interactions that entrepreneurs experience and cannot prepare for and stories about other situations and stressors. Most importantly, I share how I overcame the episodic and chronic stress that I experienced and transformed by business to suit my personal preferences. All the while making changes for my own happiness and telling my wife that we would have to settle for earning less money. She was great. Her response every time was, "I don't care how much money we make, I just want you to be happy." In addition to becoming happier with each change in my business, ironically, I also made more money.
I was a working-class kid raised with the idea that you can't fight city hall and broke out of the mold to start a business. Incidentally, I'm still serving the same companies today that I did in the late 1970s! I saved every appointment book since 1976 and years of personal journals and finally wrote the book at age 73 to better understand what I experienced in my business life and to provide an entertaining, informative, and inspiring story for other working-class kids who want to start a business but have no idea how to do it, where to begin, or what to expect; especially in terms of human relations.
My hope is that "Success and Self-Discovery," available on Amazon, can inspire and instruct people who wish to become entrepreneurs. I've worked with numerous small business owners my entire adult life and most of them are great leaders in their communities and have learned to handle stress well by necessity, like I did. Having experienced working for others and being stressed in my own business, to the point of transforming it for my own happiness and fulfillment, I fervently believe entrepreneurship provides the personal freedom that is the key to a happy, fulfilling, and reasonably stress-free life.
Click for Steven M. Stroum's biography and book description: https://tinyurl.com/4hkfn8dy
For more information contact:
Steven M. Stroum
[email protected]
http://www.smstroum.com
Media Contact
Steven M. Stroum, Venmark International, 5088779242, [email protected], www.smstroum.com
SOURCE Venmark International
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