[speaker]
There’s a difference when you’re an employee (not comparing grief but just highlighting some of my experiences).
Employees get time off, come back to work and if they function they still get paid.
Let me compare 2 extremes to help explain my point:
1. A person working in a job say, crunching numbers, happy or sad they can still do their work
2. An entrepreneur who’s sales depended on their marketing and on them showing up to speak, share, encourage and promote
And then when you manage to get to a place in your grief where you can look up hopefully at the future, you put yourself out there and you send that first post, that first email. Suddenly you feel the invisible gazes of family and close friends either; encouraging you to keep going for us all in the midst of this hard time, the disapproval of you seemingly moving on.
And no, it may not be anything anyone has said, but you wonder their true thoughts and feelings if they mirror your own.
Entrepreneurs have to bring a certain energy especially if they are promoting their own products. They have to:
– Market energetically
– Wrestle with their own guilt, and (maybe even guilt from family)
How I’ve handled it is:
– Taken my time,
– Processed, prayed and journaled… ALOT,
– Be honest with my people
– Don’t stay away forever, (I knew that if you didn’t show up at some point my clients would move on
– Choose and decide if you want to carry on or if this is a time of transition to something new.
You do know: Who looks, comments, likes and share.
You don’t know: Who silently looks… approvingly, disapprovingly, in admiration or deep loathing.
Here’s a one minute video snippet of this Podcast, I barely managed to record it in January and was experiencing grief again with my family in February. This message got real!
https://anchor.fm/camelle/episodes/039-Handling-Grief-as-an-Entrepreneur-in-the-public-gaze-epd0jp