On trying to live a soft life as an entrepreneur

Business is all about growth and being go-go-go right? But what if there was another way?

Photo by Anne Kristin Euba | FLORAL ART PHOTOGRAPHY on Unsplash

Late one night earlier this year, I was googling the definition of the word “workaholic”, trying to figure out whether or not it fits me. I had been feeling utterly exhausted and had been juggling a million different work projects, as I often do. A few friends had commented on how busy I always seemed to be. So this was a real moment of introspection: am I a workaholic? I often monitor my tendency to lose myself in work to the detriment of everything around me, but the dictionary’s definition of someone who “compulsively works excessively long and hard hours” thankfully wasn’t me.

And it’s true - I don’t regularly work 16-hour days and sacrifice weekends at the altar of work. I rarely work past about 7pm. I make time for the gym, for my family and friends, and get decent sleep. But, my approach to work and having reached burning out several times, has led me to seek therapy a few times over the years, so there’s clearly some faulty wiring there. Perhaps the best way to describe it is the way my sister once did. “Pri, I’m a hard worker, but you have a far more ferocious work ethic,” she told me when we were discussing my latest episode a few months ago, where I skated so close to burnout, I could smell the fumes.

Until now, I have been perversely proud of my work ethic - I’m the oldest daughter of Indian immigrants, after all - but I’ve reached a wall where this approach to work just doesn’t serve me anymore. I’m about to turn 48 and am in the throes of perimenopause (for which I’m now on HRT) and have a 9 year old kid.

My mind and body, that used to whisper in complaint whenever I pushed myself too hard, now screech at me in no uncertain terms: no more.

The thing is, I’m in the prime of my working life.

I've been a journalist for 25 years and have worked at New Scientist and the World Health Organization, and written for The Guardian as well as magazines like Grazia and Red. I’m on the board of a global health film festival, speak at conferences and to organisations about science and diversity. I’ve written a book, and have now launched a business running courses teaching freelancers how to take their careers to new heights.

And yet. At the exact same time that my career is soaring, I also want to physically and mentally slow down.

I have worked so hard for so long and can see my kid growing up so fast, that I want to enjoy life. I have seen friends whose marriages got destroyed by focusing so heavily on work rather than each other, or who have had their lives up-ended by having to care for aging parents.

I don’t want to wake up at 70 and wish I had enjoyed life more.

I want to spend time right here, right now, running regularly into the sea for a joyous swim. I want to spend slow evenings with friends putting the world to rights over dinner. I want to hang out with my kid, hearing about the comics she’s obsessed with. I want to lie on the sofa, limbs entangled with my husband, while he squeezes my feet and we watch films together.

And so, for the past few months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this all work. How to sate my ambition while also soothing my soul. A good friend and I actually started a movement in Barcelona called Slow Social BCN to bring people together at monthly events to talk about how to do this, and already we can tell it resonates with others.

The thing is that everything that has been written about business, entrepreneurship and success seems to distill down to two things:

1. Your business always comes first. You need to be obsessed with your work and give it everything for it to be a success, even if this means working all the time and never taking a proper holiday.

2. You always need to grow, and fast, or your business will die.

As long as these ideas were swirling in my head, I couldn’t figure out how to solve the problem. And then it occurred to me: what if I was trying to solve a problem where the assumptions were faulty?

First of all, so many notions of business and entrepreneurship are patriarchal. Operating on words like “strive” and “grind” and “hustle” and within a context in which men bear far less of the mental load of family life, and where their worth is defined by being visibly successful. Is that what I want for myself? Hell no!

And second, maybe it’s true that you can’t grow a business fast and also have a lot of free time and slowness in your life. But who says I need to grow my business fast? I earn decent money as a writer and so am not desperately trying to make earn an income from the new business.

The answer to the paradox of being an entrepreneur while leading a softer life seem to be prioritisation, both in terms of what matters to me but also in what order.

Everything can’t get the same attention all at once, it’s that simple.

So I wrote down my priorities. Other parents may not agree, but top of the list is actually me and my health and wellbeing rather than my kid. My husband and I have already lost two friends our age to cancer and others are battling chronic diseases. If I’m not ok, then I’m no good to my kid - you can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.

Second, is my family and friends (many of whom are as important as family). Third is community - supporting and mentoring younger journalists, uplifting others (especially women and minorities) and generally helping people around me. In at fourth place is work. This was telling, and explains why life doesn’t feel good when I give work too much importance. Basically, because I’m out of alignment with my beliefs.

Slowing the growth of my business allows me to live a joyous life outside it. One in which I am not just living for the escape of holidays. One where I don’t just feel like I’m surviving the week. One where work feels so rewarding that I don’t dread Mondays. I’m a work in progress for sure. But what I do know is that this new way of working, this softer and less patriarchal and capitalist way of running a business, feels so much better than anything I’ve tried before.