Right now, we’re spiraling toward a mental health crisis at work, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The numbers paint a stark picture of what’s heading our way. Every year, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost due to depression and anxiety worldwide, costing $1 trillion in lost productivity. According to Cigna, 91% of Gen Z professionals, the future of our workforce, report feeling stressed and even more, 98%, reported symptoms of burnout. Topresume reports that nearly 40% of executives have considered leaving their current role in the last year, driven by burnout, limited growth and desire for better work-life balance. Some statistics show rates of mental health conditions significantly higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s clear that something needs to change.
I know this because I’ve lived it. On paper, I was the definition of success. By the time I turned 30, I had two degrees, was happily married, lived in a beautiful home and was the owner of a successful communications firm.
But instead of celebrating my milestone birthday, I spent the year recovering from a psychotic break. From the outside, people saw the pieces of a “put-together” life but didn’t realize that I was utterly miserable beneath it all. After months of overworking and unmanaged personal and professional stress, my mind collapsed under the weight of it all.
Work Felt More Urgent Than Healing
To this day, I still remember one of the craziest parts of being at the psychiatric hospital. Regardless of how we’d gotten there, all anyone could talk about was how quickly they could get out and go back to work.
What am I going to tell my boss?
How am I going to explain to my co-workers where I’ve been?
Will my job still be there when I get back?
These were not only the top questions on our minds, but also the very things that had driven most of us to the hospital for healing in the first place.
As soon as I was discharged, I rushed back to work and tried, as best I could, to perform my day-to-day tasks. My clients looked confused, their eyes begging me for answers about where I had been and what happened. I even had a vendor scream at me about disappearing for weeks without an explanation. Through it all I just smiled, offering vague answers to satisfy curiosity, while feigning wellness and trying to find my footing and confidence again. It was terrifying and I was embarrassed, afraid and humiliated because the stakes of sharing the truth could have far-reaching consequences that could threaten my livelihood and damage my career. So, I struggled through it, smiling by day and drowning in tears and horribly unsettling anxiety at night for the next eight months, a complete shell of myself.
Two years later, my husband left me. One year later, my dad unexpectedly passed away overnight. In three years, I lost my mind, my marriage and the person who loved me the most.
And through it all, I kept working.
Joy Became My Business Strategy
My time in the psychiatric hospital was my first psychotic break, but not my last. I continued to struggle with high-functioning depression with psychotic features and generalized anxiety disorder. For years, I pushed through the symptoms.
It took a total of three mental health crises for me to finally wave the white flag of surrender and began to re-examine how I defined success. I realized that my business couldn’t truly thrive if I wasn’t thriving.
So, I created a mental health plan that saved my life and strengthened my company. We’ve since hit the seven-figure mark and are serving Fortune 500 clients. But, more importantly, the only way I measure success today is through joy. I call this philosophy Joy Economics®. Before, joy was a byproduct of the hard work. But now, my company is thriving because of the currency of joy, not in spite of it.
Through it all, I learned a few lessons about what it takes to build a business that doesn’t cost me my mental health in the process.
Making Disconnection Nonnegotiable
I started by making disconnection a formal policy in our company handbook. Nobody on our team, including me, is allowed to send or respond to emails after 7 p.m. during the week, on weekends or when someone is on vacation or out sick. Our clients know to expect this too. We even include adherence to this email ban in annual performance reviews. For newer employees, this takes some unlearning. We often have to remind them to follow this rule and help detox them from bad habits that were ingrained in other positions. But we’re committed to creating a culture that empowers everyone to put work aside to embrace a fulfilled life outside the office.
Taking Intentional Time Away
Rest has become my secret weapon. I don’t want to be the kind of leader who is “on” 24/7. So, I take intentional time away from work where I don’t spend any time being Shani the CEO, but just Shani the regular person. During these times, I’m able to reset and fill my cup, so that when I return, I can give my business and those who depend on me my very best from my overflow, not the remnants of my cup. At one point, I even took five no contact weeks away from work. It was a bit terrifying, but my team rose to the occasion, and the business grew. This intentional time away showed me where I had the company in a chokehold, with my ego telling me that I needed to be the one to get it all done.
The same has to be true for our employees. Are your team members actually taking time off or leaving vacation days unused at the end of the year? That can be a warning sign that people don’t feel safe stepping away, even if the PTO policy technically allows it. Whatever the strategy is, time away should not be treated as a reward after exhaustion, but as a way for our employees to protect their energy.
Letting Your Role Evolve With the Business
Reaching the million-dollar mark is a dream for any entrepreneur. But I failed to realize that this milestone would require a new kind of leadership from me. In just four months, my company grew from four 1099 contractors to a team of 14 W-2 employees. Until that point, my clients were used to me being hands-on. So, they resisted the growth, not wanting me to step out of the day-to-day work. At first, I took their resistance personally. I worried that stepping back would make clients feel less cared for or less valued. So instead of clearly communicating the transition, I tried to keep showing up in the same way while also scaling my company. But this wasn’t sustainable.
Instead, I needed to allow my role to evolve as the business grew. That meant communicating clearly with clients about what was changing, who would be leading their accounts and how I would remain involved at a higher strategic level. It also meant accepting that some clients might not like the new structure and that I couldn’t build a healthy company around the fear of losing them.
I’ve learned, albeit the hard way, that you don’t have to sacrifice your mental health to succeed. Success, in the truest sense of the word, does not require you to abandon yourself, ignore your limits or keep putting a smile on your face for others while you are falling apart. Success is about creating a life that allows you to have joy in the journey, not just at the end of it.
Featured image from Julia Pandina/Shutterstock
