by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
…And so the Olympics closed for another four years. Checking for the last time the brilliant coverage from Rebecca Eliot and her tireless team at ProTouch™️ Africa here, shows as she says, “The Paris 2024 Olympics marked a historic moment for Africa, as athletes from across the continent delivered their best performance yet on the global stage. With a total of 39 medals, Africa’s talent and determination shone brightly, leaving a lasting legacy and filling the continent with immense pride. The time is now to start investing in the continent’s top talent ahead of #LA2028 and beyond!”
We absolutely agree with Rebecca on the brilliance of all the athletes from across Africa, and indeed the need for investment to capitalize on this momentum we are seeing.
Investment in training, camps, and coaches, but also consideration of the athletes following such a massively high profile event such as what we have just seen, is also essential. Just how do they handle this crash from the incredible highs, to now returning not only to their day jobs (as so many across Africa are truly amateur), but also knowing that in a week or two they will have to pick up their ‘spikes’ or swimming cap and start again pushing themselves to such incredible heights of which mere mortals such as us can only dream. It’s exhausting just to think about it. Years of driving oneself towards this single goal, massive build-up, the starter’s gun goes off, the crowds cheer, medal collected, flight home to a hero’s welcome, and then…
“British athletes heading home from the Paris Olympics have all been offered the chance to sign up for “performance decompression”, a support system…to help elite performers cope with the sudden jolt of no longer having a clear goal.” (FT) With such pressure to perform at the very best, it is little wonder as the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission state (here): “Scientific research currently suggests that mental health disorders affect up to 35 per cent of elite athletes at some stage of their careers.”
Three years ago just after the Tokyo Olympics we wrote about ‘Controlling the Controllables’ (here), based around what elite athletes do when faced with problems or issues: “When the incredible and most decorated American gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, pulled out of the Olympic Team Gymnastics event following what could be clearly seen (even to our amateur eye) as a well-below-par vault, she revealed that she had realized mid flight…that she was lost! What happened to her was the ‘Twisties’, a mid air realization…that brought home the fear that she had no idea of how to even land!…Worse than nasty.”
This Olympics she was back to her very best, but admitted: “I never thought I was going to be competing again, because that’s how terrified I was of gymnastics…”.
This is Burn Out at speed, which is why we are both horrified, but also fascinated by this, as it shows us in a very short space of time what happens to many entrepreneurs in business over a slower and more prolonged space of time. So why do we mere mortals who are also expected to compete at the very heights of our abilities and sometimes even above that as we assure our Bank manager that the contract we are expecting next month is as ‘good as in the bag’; or that our Government Ministry client constantly has a different understanding of what constitutes ‘60 days’ (is it really too much to ask to support your job creating SMEs by paying on time?); or we find that half our team are down sick, as we try to run our businesses, why do we think that ‘Burnout’ does not apply to us, that we can ignore the signs and carry on. It does hit us, and when it does, it hits hard.
In the world of high-level sport "…there is a growing awareness that taking a far broader approach to athlete wellbeing is both a moral obligation and a vital element in enabling high performers to reach the top and stay there for longer.” (IOCMSC)
“…stay there for longer.”
We don’t have the resources that many in the Global North do for their Athletes, indeed neither do most if not all Athletes across Africa who will now be returning to their families, many without a medal thinking possibly (and we hope not) that they have failed. That could not be further from the truth, they are Olympians. How amazing is that! But it is true, they do not have “…a network of psychologists, psychoanalysts, and lifestyle managers to help navigate the post-competition months.” (IOCMSC)
But as entrepreneurs, we too do not have such a network, yet we are expected to perform like elite athletes in our event - our business. This drop from the top, we have all been there (if not, then enjoy the moment), returning home or back to the office after a major meeting where the deal was apparently ‘in the bag’, but pulled at the last moment. Returning from a meeting with a bank, where we needed far more finance than they offered to close a deal. The heavy rock in the base of our stomach as we open the door and are faced with our loved ones, or our employees looking expectantly up at us. At that exact moment, all we feel is failure on a grand scale, massive stress, and guess what? That massive stress is a killer if not handled correctly and will create Burnout.
McKinsey define Burnout (here) as “…the feeling of depletion, cynicism, and emotional distance that results from a lack of impact or autonomy at work.”
As they say: “Basically, that means too many things to do and not enough tools, time, or energy to do them. And “too many things” doesn’t have to mean a thousand: if the one thing you’re trying to do isn’t getting done, for whatever reason, that can easily cause the alienating feelings associated with burnout. And these feelings are quite different from simply feeling a bit tired or looking forward to a break.”
“It is typified by four core symptoms: exhaustion, mental distancing, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment.”
Yup, not nice. We have to be aware and do not fall into the ‘sacrifice syndrome’ trap of allowing ourselves not to take care of ourselves (because we ‘have to’ go on) and one way to avoid this is to handle stress far better.
Stress in itself is actually quite healthy, just like building muscles - work hard, rest and recover, work hard again, rest and recover. But where we so often fail is that we do not rest and recover, so stress builds upon stress builds upon stress, until like a pressure cooker, we burst.
Somehow you have to resist the urge to pick up the sword and immediately return to the fight. Somehow you have to be truthful to yourself and allow yourself time to recover. McKinsey recognises this in their article ‘Feeling stuck? Go for a walk (here) where a disconnect allows your body and mind time to slow down and self-heal.
As Melanie wrote in a recent GML (here): “I have noticed a positive trend among my fellow women entrepreneurs - they are now focused on taking their health and well-being much more seriously. They now have a greater appreciation of the fact that you cannot have a healthy business if the people who are at the heart of that business are not healthy. It starts with women entrepreneurs themselves setting the example for everyone else to follow. Whether that is going for a morning walk to reset mind, body, and spirit before going into the workplace; or going to the gym for a workout…The bottom line is that if you want a healthy business, it starts with being a healthy woman entrepreneur, and then ensuring that your employees are also focused on their health and wellbeing too.”
Or if you want to think of it in another way - there is a reason why in airline’s safety briefing they stress emphatically for you to put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others.
If you take a moment to think about it - it makes so much sense.
Stay safe.