June 28, 2021, will always be remembered as the day my confidence as an entrepreneur officially faded since the global pandemic began. The president, who announced the correction of the blockade level 4, sent shockwaves through my system: 15 months of spinning, 15 months of uncertainty, and 15 months of fear had reached a threshold I could never have imagined.
Fancying to be your boss is a binding contract between you, your dream, and the impact you want to make. However, this time is difficult because the choice of the boss does not mean that the work is sustainable in the long term.
When I woke up on June 28, I knew I would be overwhelmed by hot phone calls, emails, other messages from customers and employees, delaying projects, cutting budgets, and holding orders indefinitely. This news came differently. It got to the point where my optimism was exhausted from the financial losses suffered by hurricane Kovid in 2020.
In pre-pandemic South Africa, more than 17 million people had been diagnosed with a mental illness, with 9.8% of the man population experiencing clinical trouble at some point in their lives. There is currently no evidence of how the pandemic affects South Africa’s mental health, but its visible impact is a grim story. The notion that entrepreneurs have a high level of mental resilience is why reviewing our mental energy is seen as a personal responsibility rather than a system or government priority.
As I wrote this article, I did not find any evidence from a South African perspective. In my 13 years as an entrepreneur, I experienced many burns, depression, and anxiety. Yet, after going through many “interventions” for entrepreneurs, I haven’t found one that prioritizes my mental health condition.
I find it very interesting that of the nine “support interventions” offered by the South African Department of Small Business Development, none of them emphasize or focus on mental health.
For an industry that is a massive contributor to GDP and, above all, job creation, I find this worrying. With the pandemic threatening the core of South Africa’s biggest job creator, there must be someone in the government which recognizes the importance of such an intervention.