Understanding
Wellbeing

Chapter 1: What is Wellbeing?

Wellbeing is the expression of physical health, emotional resilience, and social connection.

We believe wellbeing is a collective endeavor as we are all impacted by our environments. The notion that your personal wellness is totally in your control is part of the toxic narratives that end up making wellness a goal that can be almost impossible to achieve. Have you ever felt a sense of failure because you couldn’t fit in that hour of meditation every day? or reach your workout goals? or make that healthy meal?

While there is a lot we can do to incorporate wellbeing practices into our lives, it is important to acknowledge the role that our environments have in shaping our sense of contentment, fulfillment, and health.

Mental Health is often experienced and understood by the negative consequences when we experience burnout or stress. Leaders and team members lose productivity, experience toxic conflict, and have unproductive communication when we have unresolved or unprocessed grief, anger, and fear.

Mental Health is more than this, everyone has an individual experience of mental and emotional wellbeing. Wellbeing is the positive state where someone is able to manage stress, uncertainty, and disruption while staying kind to self and others.

“I’d reached the breaking point, but came back from the edge through my wellbeing journey.”

— Avary Kent, Chief People Officer, Spring Activator

“I was almost always on the edge of tears, my husband couldn’t take any more of my outbursts, I didn’t want to be around my friends because they were so tired of hearing me complain about work. I always had to remain calm and positive as my team kept coming to me with challenges they were having with a client. The pressure felt like so much - that I was the only person who could hold it. The only person who had the answers. It felt totally unfair and I couldn’t see a way out.
This is only one of many rock bottom times that I’ve faced as a serial entrepreneur and business leader. I’ve started 5 companies, and with each one I’ve learned incredible lessons about what it means to succeed - not just financially - but at a deeply human level. To move beyond ‘work-life balance’ to true work-life integration. To learn to ask for help, to recognize ‘you can only give from your overflow’ and to learn how to keep my cup filled so that I could be my best self for my clients, my team, and my family.
In this instance, it was discovering the power of Reiki and Byron Katie’s The Work that helped me to turn around this situation. But at a deeper level, the lesson was one about boundaries and self-respect and moving away from a scarcity mindset. Learning the value of mental health - not just as a concept, but as a lived experience - changed everything for me as a business leader. And it has built resilience for me as new challenges come to the fore-front.
I’m still learning every day about new ways to keep myself healthy and in balance, but the first step was an acknowledgment that there was a problem and lifting my vision to see that running a company does NOT have to be the Silicon Valley fetish of young men, working around the clock, eating ramen, and having no life. I could be a business leader and entrepreneur AND a mother, wife, friend, fire dancer, baker, and artist.”

Top Influences on Wellbeing

Here are the top 7 influences on mental health from founders and business leaders:

The impact of leadership isolation aka “impression management”
Financial responsibility
Managing team dynamics and conflict
Stress from non-work life
Industry changes
Expanding and contracting team
Managing client and customer experience

Mental health exists at the intersection of personal, professional, and societal experiences.

The myth that you can just “check your baggage at the door” when entering your job is damaging and limits our ability to shift our wellbeing.

When embarking on the journey of well-being as a business leader one of the important first steps is to acknowledge your whole experience, both professional and personal.

Building Routines & Habits

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to integrate more wellness into your life? Here’s a video from Kurzgesagt about changing your life one tiny step at a time. Sometimes it helps to understand WHY change can be so difficult.