Episode 3: Rough Times, A Closer Look
I’ve written about some of the struggles of being a new businesses owner before on my blog as bit of a therapy session for myself (admittedly), and to give some encouragement for others going through the same thing. I think everyone who has set out on the journey of entrepreneurship has struggled with self-doubt, anxiety, and questioning if they made the right choice— no matter how successful they have eventually become. I’m talking about the classic question of whether all the sacrifice will eventually be worth it. I’ve also written a “mental health guide” for new entrepreneurs that goes through tactics and strategies that I’ve learned to help overcome some of these struggles.
Episode 3 of “The Road to Tiny Village Cartagena” DocuSeries entitled, “Rough Times” takes a look at some of that mental fatigue that came with the development of the Tiny Village Cartagena project over the last 5 years. We began thinking about how to tell the story of Tiny Village Cartagena (specifically the mental aspect of creating this type of business in another country far away from family and friends), and we thought it was important to give a real glimpse of what that looked like from a human lens. There is a long list of challenges that I have encountered in my time working on the Tiny Village project. Starting a company from scratch with no outside funding was definitely difficult. Doing that in an industry that I’ve had zero prior experience in — another challenge. Building the business in a totally different country without knowing the language— another. Then you add in challenges with doing business in Colombia and dealing with all its intricacies, complexities and nuances. The list goes on, and on, and on. I think it’s safe to say I didn’t make this venture easy on myself at all, haha. But, I think the most difficult part of MY JOURNEY building this company has been developing the fortitude to try to keep it together mentally.
The Pressure
I wasn’t born rich or even well off. When I look at my story I can really pinpoint conversations that I’ve had, people that I’ve met, and decision that I’ve made, that have had a profound positive impact on my life’s trajectory. There are decisions like what college to attend (shoutout Hampton University!), what internships I obtained and what career path I took that have opened up opportunities for me that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. There are also specific people who have impacted those forks in the road for me— and for those people I am super grateful. So me being an introspective person, I look at those decisions, situations and interactions as a bit of “fate.” When I think of the (relative) success I had early in my career in tech, I truly feel fortunate. I feel like I caught the perfect mix of “breaks” to allow me to pursue path that I have pursued. I know that some people will hear that and say “you’re talking like you have imposter syndrome — you deserve every bit of that.” Yes, I did (and do) deserve that. I worked hard for it — really hard. And, no I don’t have imposter syndrome. I feel really comfortable with who I am in any room. I am just saying all of this to say, from where I came from, building up your career for 10+ years (including college y’all, I’m not that old, haha), quitting before you thirtieth birthday, moving to another country and betting EVERYTHING on yourself, comes with a certain amount of, lets say “stress” that is hard to describe. There is no safety net behind me. There is no mom or dad, family member or investor that is going to bail me out if this “dream” doesn’t pan out, and that is pretty scary. Extremely. You end up constantly asking yourself “did a make a huge mistake and throw that 10+ years of hard work away along with all that fate?”
The Isolation
So when I think about the difficulties I’ve had with this project mentally, spiritually and emotionally — yes, a lot of it has to do with the day to day grind. The day to day life of an “entrepreneur.” The fact that YOU are responsible for figuring things out. The fear of the consequences that will come if YOU CAN’T solve it. But really, thats par for the course. I expected that. The part I didn’t expect (and thanks for NOT giving me the heads up ENTREPRENEUR FRIENDS, lol), was this intense and constant feeling of isolation. Tiny Village Cartagena is a special project. It’s MY dream. It’s MY invention. It’s MY baby. It’s MY life. And, it’s completely and uniquely (and sometimes regrettably) ALL MINE. Everything about it. Which means in turn logically means it’s no one else’s. NO ONE cares as much as me. NO ONE has the interest that I do. NO ONE lives, breathes and dreams it as I do. The company is over 4 years old, and we still don’t have one full time employee (hopefully that changes soon — I’ve been searching to fill roles for over a year 🙏🏾). Sometimes you really feel like you are on an island with no help in sight. When you are stressed, in the “trenches”, have an emergency, or need someone to vent to, its isolating to look around and you are alone in your apartment in Colombia. It feels as though you have no outlet to vent to or even anyone you feel that can relate to you. Your friends in Colombia look at you like “you are American, if it doesn’t work, you’ll go back to your life in USA.” And your friends in the USA think you’re “living the dream” in Colombia, “what’s the big deal?” A lot of the stress and isolation that I have encountered building this project I’ve had to learn how to deal with myself (which maybe isn’t a great thing). I’ve started to try to keep much more consistently active, eating healthy and just trying to keep a healthy routine. I think being able to break my days up into productive chunks has really helped me stay on point and to feel like I’m not wasting any moment of any day.
The Ups and downs
Everyone knows that life is about peaks and valleys and we will have highs, and lows. We hear that all the time. And, I don’t want anyone to get it twisted — this project has been tough, but I’ve had some incredible moments that I wouldn’t trade for the world (and hopefully more to come). My strategy for managing these highs and lows are to try to keep myself as even keel as possible when it comes to day to day events, milestones, goals and progress. We always get advice from people saying “don’t let it get you too down,” but what about the “don’t let it get you too high?” I think that is equally important. Because when you are running a marathon (shout out to Nipsey, RIP), you can’t burn too much energy sprinting and celebrating wins. Equally, I feel like when you allow yourself to get super high, it is also easier to allow yourself to get super low. Because… well…. equilibrium. So I try to keep myself in a nice “middle-range” where I can take time to acknowledge wins, but quickly move on to the next thing. Likewise, when there are losses or setbacks, it allows me to treat them the same — acknowledge them, then move onto the business of solving them. For me it’s like, “damn, that sucks… well, okay… let me take a little break and figure out how to solve this later.” Basically every win and setback, I try to treat the same. “I’m taking a little break to get food or drinks with friends, I’ll reconvene tomorrow” haha.
The resolve
The “Rough Times” we talk mention in Episode 3, are actually both speaking to a point in time in the project where I thought I wasn’t going to be able to continue, and the constant creep of fear and anxiety that happens on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Both then, and now, it’s an exercise of mental endurance to stay true to your path and push through, and thats what we try to show in that episode.