An entrepreneur's journal: cottage reading

And in those moments, I think of you. Everyone who reads me or believes in Braver. All the professionals, entrepreneurs and curious people eager for innovation. Right now, I am thinking of you and telling myself it has been too long since I opened my heart to you. Too long since I wrote an article straight from the heart.

What is happening with Braver? Where are we as entrepreneurs? I would like to tell you we have moved even further ahead, but although we have, we are still where I would have liked to be a year ago. As though what is happening now were already in the past.

From my modest reading on the importance of living fully in the present moment, that does not seem ideal. But thinking this way is also part of the reason we find the energy to keep moving forward: we are never fully satisfied with where we are, because more than anything, we want to make our big vision a reality.

On the other hand, this way of thinking is also what sometimes keeps us from telling you proudly about our successes (as a mentor recently helped me realize). It is as though where we are is already taken for granted, because we have been picturing it for so long. As though we do not fully appreciate our immediate successes, because for our business to survive, we already have to be planning the next 10 moves.

So that was a long, almost philosophical introduction to tell you that Braver is in great shape! We lack the resources to truly seize all the opportunities. We have grown the team by hiring three wonderful senior developers. We have finally received approval from the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux to begin deploying certain projects. We have been selected for a highly promising, foundational project in our network. We have our first users. We are breaking through walls. Big walls!

But in all honesty, our mental load is enormous, and the weight of our successes seems marginal compared with the challenges we see ahead. Is this true for all entrepreneurs? I could not say, but that is how it is here. What is interesting is that this way of experiencing entrepreneurship has helped keep us here: constantly anticipating the next obstacles, refusing to treat success as an endpoint, not wanting to stop until our vision is alive. Put like that, we sound like true gladiators, but we have to admit we are not all-powerful. This way of life is extremely draining, and there is a reason people often talk about entrepreneurs' mental health.

We see entrepreneurs as free and in control. And that is partly true. But is it possible that entrepreneurs are sometimes slaves to their businesses instead? That is a rather dramatic statement, and I wonder whether “slave” is the right word, because we chose this life ourselves. What makes us slaves, figuratively speaking, to a non-human thing such as a business lies instead in the relationship we choose to maintain. So if we agree that, as an entrepreneur, I am responsible for this excessive mental load, how can I truly transform this relationship of servitude into a healthier one?

I recently heard someone say: "an entrepreneur has to learn to work 'smarter' and not work 'harder'". One simple word that makes all the difference. One simple shift in perception that can make all the difference, but is surprisingly difficult to put into practice. Do you know why? Because we got where we are by working extremely hard. I will spare you the number of hours Mathieu has spent in front of his code, because it is probably inhuman, and we do not have time to add it to the Guinness World Records. But seriously, we need to find a way to deprogram our brains. What a funny life, forcing us to deprogram a passionate programmer!

I will leave you now, because we still have plenty on our plates...! In particular, we need to learn to work even smarter and perhaps try to take a little vacation! 😆 👩‍💻

I wish you a beautiful summer and a wonderful vacation, deprogramming your brain so you can try to simply be there with your family, your friends, and above all, fully present with yourself!