3 Tips On Surviving The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

You’re a Hollywood celebrity with the world at your feet … nothing to worry about, right? Well – not always. 

A household name and star of a dozen comedy hits, Jim Carrey is widely known as Hollywood’s leading funnyman, yet behind his signature glowing smile is a hard truth: even the greatest performers – sometimes more of them than we think – struggle with their mental health.

Carrey grew up with an unwell mother and an unemployed father and has often said that he began as an entertainer out of sheer necessity. His humor was born from a desperation to make ends meet. Not long into his career, he started to suffer from depression. He lent on prescription drugs to get him through, but he began to realise they weren’t helping him to overcome his adversity.

“In life are peaks, there are valleys. But if you’re on medication they’re all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in. A place where you’re not getting any answers, but you’re living OK. You can smile at the office, but there’s always a low level of despair.”

In order to overcome adversity, Carrey committed to removing all medications and stimulants from his life, even coffee. “I’m very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful,” Carrey says. “I had depression for years but now, when the rain comes, it rains, but it doesn’t stay. It doesn’t stay long enough to immerse me and drown me anymore.” His new lease on life helped him overcome depression and truly appreciate the beauty of the world around him.

Much like Jim Carrey, these three entrepreneurs overcame overwhelming odds to get to where they are today. Here they share their advice and wisdom on how to survive the roller coaster both in life and in business.

Promote Growth Within Yourself

Jaikishaan Sharma, CEO of Shaarmatricks, suffered a life-changing accident which left him wheelchair-bound for three years. After being told he may never walk again, he committed to a positive outlook and a lifestyle of change. Then he took his first steps. He has since been a part of a community of over 70,000 members, all building successful online businesses from home.

He shares: “The brighter the light, the darker the shadows. There is a saying that those who have known what darkness and pain feel like can either dwell in their darkness, or spread the light they seek. Over the last six years I have had multiple setbacks on my entrepreneurial journey. I suffered financially, physically and in business, but I always had the desire to make a drastic change for me and my family. I had a choice to allow something beautiful to grow from my struggle, and I believe we all have that choice.”

Sharma also believes a key to overcoming adversity is to focus on self-improvement. “Being a successful entrepreneur isn’t just about improving your business knowledge and skills,” he says, “it’s about understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s about following your passion and finding your truth, especially when it comes to dealing with the inevitable ups and downs during the journey.”

For years, Sharma spent time in anxious worry over how he was viewed by others. He allowed these people to control his mental state, productivity and outlook towards life. But determined to actualize real change and positivity, he started by stepping into and embracing the arduous journey he had survived. 

“I would constantly second guess myself. These days, I don’t have time for that. Stop worrying about others. Self-esteem is the relationship you have with yourself. It’s all too easy to watch what other people are doing and feel like you’re not doing well enough, but you need to snap out of it. You only have to compete against yourself, so spending time worrying about what others have and do is time you’re not taking action. That’s time wasted.”

Focus On What You Can Change … YOU.

Junior Anthony, CEO and founder of LiveSotori, believes that the best tip in thriving during life’s roller coaster ride is to figure things out, protect your time and surround yourself with the right people. 

Anthony’s path was far from easy. He overcame homelessness, betrayal and his own inexperience to go on and build a multi-million dollar affiliate marketing business. Anthony’s unorthodox style of coaching and unique outlook towards life has allowed him to help people quit their jobs and make a living as entrepreneurs online. 

Anthony believes that not only must you be aware and protect yourself from people who will  benefit from putting you in a dispiriting situation but also learn how to put your focus on the solution when problems arise. 

“At LiveSotori, we prefer to utilize our company’s values, focusing on helping people travel through insight rather than pain. Like Jim Carrey mentioned, ‘life is too beautiful’, however  it is also unexpected. When life throws some curveballs … you must be able to buckle down and work like a mad man to find an adequate solution. Entrepreneurs are problem solvers: it’s what we do.”

As Anthony and his team were preparing to host their first ever SotoriLive convention, they were shocked to find out they had been deceived a couple days prior to the event. “When someone we thought we could trust forged the signature of my assistant nearly half a million dollars was on the line. This put us at odds with both Disney and Marriott. But instead of being depressed and wondering, ‘why me’, both myself and my team worked around the clock to make the impossible possible. I stayed awake for more than five days creating solutions.” 

“The absolute best tip I can give in surviving the roller coaster is to always protect your time, never lose faith, don’t take anything personally, push through adversity and keep amazing people nearby.”

Harness Your Emotions

FrankFrank Song is a former Wall Street investment banker, private equity investor and confidential strategy advisor to businesses, high-net worth individuals and politicians. He believes that controlling your emotions is vital to succeeding in business. From sleeping on the floor at Walmart to becoming the founder of an eight-figure international business conglomerate, he shares: “Emotional control is one of the most critical factors to not only surviving the entrepreneurial roller coaster, but to thriving in it. This is for one simple reason: it is the foundation of being able to make good judgement calls,” he says.

“As an entrepreneur, we’re constantly calculating and weighing almost infinite option trees, each with unique risks and rewards, short and long term effects, and attempting to make assumptions or predictions for missing pieces of data. 

“If you make more good judgement calls than bad ones, you increase your chances of success. If you make more bad judgement calls than good, you decrease your chances of success – it’s that simple. Now, one of the biggest inhibitors to this is making decisions by emotions, and this is why emotion control is such an important factor in surviving the roller coaster.”

Forged from painful lessons in life, these entrepreneurs offer unique perspectives and insights to help you thrive in the face of adversity. Circumstances in your life may at first seem insurmountable, but each of these experiences presents a simple virtue: no matter how difficult your hardship is, you can overcome the odds and create a solution.

As these individuals have shown, at its heart, success is a factor of both your willingness to succeed and your determination to make it happen. Surviving the roller coaster takes more than merely strapping in and going along for the ride. It takes taking charge, showing gratitude and protecting that which matters most. In doing so, you’ll do more than survive. You’ll thrive.