Entrepreneurship is a great thing. It shapes the way businesspeople think, the relationships they forge, their daily disposition, and their overall approach to a work/life balance.
For women entrepreneurs, it can be especially hard to juggle a family and personal life while keeping the appropriate entrepreneurial mindset intact.
According to Lema Khorshid, entrepreneur and co-founding partner of Fuksa Khorshid in Chicago, it is important to take a holistic approach to life, focusing on more than building a successful career or company, which can come at the expense of other considerations like health and well-being.
When women feel fulfilled mentally, physically, and spiritually, they are better at everything they do — including their businesses. This is a simple notion that Khorshid has promoted for the last eight years through her BizOver event.
The BizOver is a style event that offers makeovers to female professionals and provides a networking platform for them to bond with other like-minded individuals. “Being a great business woman also means being healthy, taking care of your appearance and taking heed of the way you present yourself to the world,” Khorshid said. “It’s important to adopt a more holistic mindset and create one cohesive front all day long.”
Asked to provide some tips on how female entrepreneurs can think more holistically about their personal and professional lives, she suggests three ways to stay more connected.
1. Nix unhealthy habits
Mindsets are forged when there is no extraneous fog — no negative emotions, unhealthy habits or personal sacrifices that leave one wanting “more.”
When you eliminate or reduce time spent feeling mentally, emotionally and physically bankrupt, you focus more of your attention on things you love to do — like running your business.
This could be as simple as taking 15 minutes every morning to enjoy a cup of coffee and mull over a positive quote you saw in the newspaper, then find ways to weave it through your day at the office and at home.
2. Better infuse your business with your values
Adopting a holistic business strategy allows women entrepreneurs to develop an entirely new mindset about their companies, and their individual roles within them. For example, if philanthropic work is your passion, but you are so busy with day-to-day duties that you keep pushing it to the side, consider making one Friday a month a mandatory on-site community day for your office.
Or, if your company can offer free services for a charitable organization, like helping spread the word about a fundraiser via your PR team or providing sound counsel on a business predicament, that is another way of fusing your personal passion with your professional one, and feeling more “one” on a daily basis.
3. Embrace your authenticity
Women should be women — and never feel bad for needing to leave early to pick up the kids, getting a blow-out before a big important meeting or treating yourself to that new pair of shoes for the office.
Many people look at women as they climb the business ladder and expect them to adapt, to look and act like men, and that’s so wrong. Being a great leader is about being authentic and true to who you are — and you should embrace that and encourage other women to do the same. It is about being a capable and competent human being, regardless of how one looks or how one is expected to behave. Women need to be themselves.
If you think that it’s necessary to do everything for everyone except yourself to prove self-worth, losing that deep-rooted mindset won’t happen overnight. But if you devote time to creating a more balanced, holistic approach to work and life, Khorshid believes you will feel so much more present personally and professionally.
