The best tip to fight stress, told from 9 years ago!
Life is difficult.
The loss of a loved one, a crumbling business, a shuttering relationship, dwindling finances, weak economies and hundreds of other things are overwhelming the sh*t out of our lives.
Half the time, we have zero control on our emotions.
Over the past several weeks, it’s been very difficult for me to remain completely calm, composed, energetic, and have a stable state of mind.
The uncertainty of times have left me speechless and the only consoling aspect has been to keep growing the business am working at right now.
My mind kept on chewing things and my emotions were all over the place, most of the time. But despite all this, I kept on getting the work done.
But this is not the first time I’m feeling so low that I could use a shoulder.
In June 2013, I lost my job at a leading NGO in town. I never felt the pinch at the time as I had enough runway for the next 5 months owed to my savings and a few small businesses I used to operate on the side.
But fate had its way around life. A month later, I sunk my savings into a funny business and lost it all. I lost an entire truck of Irish potatoes, a story I will tell another day.
By January 2014, I was broke, done and out. I had an empty wallet and a broken heart. This is not some rags-to-riches story. In fact, I am not that rich yet, but I was in rags.
My relationship with my dad was bad, and I did not have good friends. Old friends were drifting away and they were trapped with their own life problems.
But I had time.
I worked, no matter how I was feeling.
If I had 4 hours, I would do something, even if it felt like I was not making any progress. If I did not feel like working, I would watch youtube tutorials. With that amount of time, I sunk deeper into self-study. I taught myself all things from sales, to graphics to video editing, to product management. I started polishing my writing skill and did coding. I failed at coding but became a great product manager, a skill that would later help my first tech StartUp Ugabus.
No one ever saw or heard from me in 2014. I self-kidnapped. As the rest of the world progressed, I laid low in a small tiny slum, armed with a Pentium 4 laptop and a 2G internet connection. Life was hard but I was determined. Boiled irish and wheat porridge became my daily meal.
Three meals a day became a mindset as life hammered me into eating porridge for supper. The dark days were here and I had to face them like the man my father raised.
Life can sometimes be mean. The holy bible says it clearly, “There is a season of plenty and a season of scarcity”
In 2016, I launched Ugabus, scaled it, got my first investment and then shipped the first version of the app. We won several awards and helped thousands of bus passengers over come ticket fraud at bus parks.
Entrepreneurship became my real calling and the path seemed visible. I built confidence in myself and started having some positive momentum.
Today, I was thinking about where I was and where I am. I decided I’d write this piece. Even a pending surgery can’t take away my positive vibe.
And if there is one thing I have to attribute all the progress of the last 9 years…
It comes to only one thing…
I kept working no matter what my emotional state was.
Keep grinding.
Don’t waste time. Every hour is important. Every minute is important.
You might be shattered right now, but there is nothing stopping you from building your career, no matter what your age and what happened in your past. Life is a B*tch. It will show you the middle finger. But you can show it back to the world, but only if you get work done.
Your entire life’s foundation is your hustle.
Sh*t is tight right now, but keep building. We have crossed that river before, and we will cross it again, this time with better experience and reliable skillset.
We MUST trust the process.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Don’t let yourself stop you from growing.
Since you read this, you might want to connect with me on Twitter.
