Entrepreneurship is about creating value. It is about taking risks and bootstrapping. It is the framework for designing, launching, and running a new business. The creator of this business is called an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur has to make business decisions and deal with government policies, market demand, and economic crises. The entrepreneur has to focus on her core competence and create a competitive advantage to increase the footprint.

The entrepreneur acts on an idea and manages and oversees the launch and growth of her business. The entrepreneur has to develop a business plan, go alone or hire staff, work within her financial and material resources, look at her own skill sets, be a dynamic leader, see her attitude to risk, and take responsibility for failure or success.

Four Columns loves entrepreneurs who take risks, think outside the box, meet the needs of the market, are agile, and go above and beyond to surpass the expectations of the customer.

Jesselina started Pad2Go, Muskan Khanna owns a boutique tea store, Ashley is starting a beauty business, Paula Ariya owns a beauty salon, Mallory Aldred owns a food consulting business, and Anu Bidani is starting STEM, one of the fastest tech educational firms in North America. These women are game-changers on the cutting edge in their field, empowering women and making a difference in society.

From my perspective, too many entrepreneurs get so focused that they sacrifice many other important areas of their lives. Michelle runs The Balanced CEO, which is a place for entrepreneurs to become their best selves while growing their business. Michelle empowers you to create a strong mind, body, and soul connection so you can develop a positive mindset and focus on productivity while building consistent habits and routines, reduce stress, balance your well-being, and build a successful business with purpose.

Michelle talks about life, gratitude, self-reflection, and having balance in our lives.

Michelle, I am looking forward to interviewing you as we have so much in common. Tell me a little about you?

Thank you so much for interviewing me, Jerry! I was born and raised on a very small island known as St.Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. My mom is from Trinidad and my dad was from New York. Since 2014, I have been living in the states first in Virginia and now I am living in Maryland. I went to college to become a Pastry Chef and worked in that field for a while but later quit and started working in insurance and soon realized that I wanted nothing more but to become my own boss.

I am a big believer in having balance in your life. Walk me through how you came up with The Balanced CEO?

After being self-employed for a few years now I noticed that as much as I was passionate about building a successful business and doing it all, I quickly became overwhelmed and burnt out causing a toll on my health.

I was so focused on growing my business that I wasn’t paying attention to taking care of myself, my well-being, and other areas of my life.  

Once I started taking care of myself first I have become happier and healthier and able to function better, become more creative, and able to get through my to-do list a lot easier causing my business to grow faster.

Being an entrepreneur is one of the most rewarding jobs out there and to succeed starts with YOU. The more that we show love and care for our mind, body, and soul the more we can achieve because it will come from a place of balance. 

We aren’t here to just work but also to find the right balance to enjoy other things in life.

I know from personal experience that it is hard creating a balance between life and business but it is possible!

So, I created The Balanced CEO to provide inspiration, resources, tools, and tips to help entrepreneurs, bloggers, and content creators manage their mind, take care of themselves, become less overwhelmed, more productive, and become the best version of themselves all while building your dream business.

We all have so much potential within us and we can create the life we deserve but it all starts with ourselves.

At The Balanced CEO, it is all about implementing balance in the lives of us entrepreneurs who try to do it all.

Before I got married I did not know how to spell gratitude. I practice it daily. Your best practice is to practice gratitude daily. Talk to me about why and the after-effects?

I believe that there is ALWAYS something to be thankful for. No matter how hard your life is at the moment there is always a little something that you should be thankful for whether it is you have a warm place to live in, clothes on your back, food to eat, or waking up to see another day. People often focus on what they don’t have vs. what they do have. I believe that when times are tough and you shift your mindset to focus on what you do have you will become happy and fulfilled. It’s all about being mindful and appreciating life and everything it has to offer.

Balancing your mind, body, and soul is not easy. How did you achieve this at such an early stage in your life? For me, it has taken a lot of introspection?

This is something I am actually still working on and I do believe that we are always working on balancing our mind, body, and soul as the journeys in our life change.

I take it one day at a time now by creating habits and routines that help balance out my day. 

For my morning routine, I spend a few hours taking care of myself, mind, body, and soul first before jumping into work. I never used to do this and it has changed my life completely. I journal, read, workout, and make myself a healthy breakfast. My morning routine has helped me to become motivated and has given me the energy to start my workday with a positive attitude.

In the evening time, I “clock out” of work and I practice yoga then spend time with my husband. 

I have learned to appreciate the time I have in the day and not take it for granted but instead use my time wisely and create a work-life balance.

I have been a giver all my life without boundaries. However, it hurt me. Talk to me about loving ourselves, cutting negative relationships, and letting go of toxicity in our lives?

It is so important to love ourselves first, many people think it is selfish but it is 100% not selfish. To be full of bliss and balanced, we need to be happy with ourselves. In order, to help others and take care of others we have to take care of ourselves first. Learning to say no, cutting off negative relationships, or removing ourselves from any kind of negative environment will seem hard at first. You will feel guilty and your emotions will get the best of you. But, once you see how positively it impacts your mind and your life, it will get easier. At the end of the day, we have to live with ourselves no one else. So, choose to live it the way you want. Negative relationships bring you down and cause you to be negative as well putting a damper on your mind and your goals. You should always surround yourself with positive people. Why go through life being negative and living miserably?

I have met so many entrepreneurs who are successful financially but have messed up personal lives. Help me understand how does balance look like in their lives?

Money is important because we need it to survive and lots of us just want to be financially free. But, what is more, important is the people in our lives, our relationships, and our self-care. The money will always come and go but our family and friends, unfortunately, don’t live forever and we should never take that for granted. These entrepreneurs probably spent 24/7 working and even when they were with their families, work probably came first. There is always a way to have a work-life balance. You just have to figure out what works for you and your life.

Self-reflection is an amazing habit as long as it is done to see how you can help other people by becoming better… please explain?

Self-reflection is such a great way to slow down, practice self-care, and live in the present moment. Sometimes we get so caught up in our day-to-day and it’s like we are on autopilot. It causes us to become frustrated like we aren’t seeing any progress on our goals. But, if we take the time to reflect by journaling, looking at past pictures, or just meditating it will help us to reflect on our mistakes, see how far we come and if our daily tasks are aligned with our goals. Practicing self-reflection consistently will help us gain more clarity and peace in our lives.

In your opinion do we have a healthy relationship with social media? Does the dopamine effect of likes, shares, pins, and comments make it artificial, and is it healthy?

I believe that a lot of us don’t have healthy relationships with social media. Especially as entrepreneurs we are obsessing over our metrics (likes, share, engagement, etc).  And we tend to compare ourselves to others causing us to be less productive and strive for perfection. When perfection actually does not exist. We shouldn’t compare ourselves because all our journeys are different. We are all unique and can share our messages differently. We need to rewire our brains to learn to use social media as a tool to connect not compare.

Can anyone become an entrepreneur? Should they do a self-analysis and see if they have the skill sets?

I believe anyone can become what they want to be if they put their mind to it. But, entrepreneurship might not be for everyone. The long hours, the risk, and the mindset is hard. I know some people who never want to be an entrepreneur because they like structure and the stability of having a paycheck. So, yes a self-analysis is definitely a good idea. But, if you are determined to become an entrepreneur and realize you don’t have any skills, just learn. As entrepreneurs, we are constantly learning new skills as we wear many hats in the business. So, if you set your mind to something you can do it.

You are a woman after my own heart. You like food and carbs. Talk to me about your city where you live and the food scene?

I currently live in Maryland and I am near the DMV area (DC, Maryland, Virginia). There are so much different foods and cultures here and I love it. Being from the Caribbean it’s nice to have a lot of different foods that remind me of home. Also, I love the fact that I can find lots of healthy restaurants.

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Live a life that is well balanced; don’t do things in excess – Daniel Smith

Balance is a feeling derived from being whole and complete; it’s a sense of harmony. It is essential to maintain quality in life and work – Joshua Osenga

As I read the headlines for the last couple of weeks, it has become depressing. A famous entrepreneur who was famous for focusing on success dies in his early 40’s. The final six months of his life were drugs and alcohol. The entrepreneur was paying people a salary to hang out with him. Another entrepreneur was talking about working 80 hours a week. I looked into his personal life. He has four kids from four different women and was asking the journalist who was interviewing him to find him a date. Another spiritual guru was caught in the act of infidelity and drugs. The song continues.

The pursuit of excess or just focusing on one aspect of your life puts the other essential areas out of balance. Everything in life needs balance.

Feeling lonely by not leading a balanced life

The phone rang. In my 15 years on Bay Street, the phone rang constantly. The reasons are to make or cancel a trade, to get a quote, to inform us about a change, or to invite us for a lunch presentation or news announcement.

There were some calls you just ignored. For instance, a call from a stock promoter. However, this was an important call. He had just retired as the CFO of a major mining company. We talked for a while. After that, I asked him how things were going as it had been six months into his retirement. He was shaking and trembling on the other side. He was lonely and bored to death. The latest surveys from the US, Canada, and the UK all show that the baby boomers are lonely after retirement.

Mr. CFO was 60 years old and for the last, three and a half decades had worked in mining operations in the US, South America, and Southeast Asia. He had a fancy condo in the city, a condo in Florida, millions in the bank account. Above all, he was alone, lonely, bored and scared. In conclusion, he called because he wanted to talk to someone.

What is your purpose in life?

In other words, all his life he had focused so much on his career that he never focused on his wife. The kids were raised by nannies and he never formed a bond with them. The wife had left him. The kids had no time for him.

In addition, he made the mistake of replacing his work identity with his personal identity. Similarly, the identity of a husband, brother, uncle, son, father, and volunteer all took a back seat. Above all, it was always that quarterly report and making the analysts happy. It was about meeting targets and getting compensated for it.

The truth is that the work identity ends at some point. The title, place in the organization chart, the work ethic makes us feel worthy. However, we fail to find a balance.

Therefore, I asked him if he had a purpose for his life now. I honestly believe the question was in another language from his response.

After that, I asked if he was ready to embrace change and how did he prepare himself.

Did he volunteer at all?

Did he ever share his money with charities to make a difference?

Did he have a vision and mission to enrich other people around him?

Life is a circle. We reap what we sow.

A balanced life includes

In conclusion, a balanced life includes having a dynamic faith, a loving family, supportive friends, and eating healthy food as it is important for us emotionally, mentally, psychologically, physically, and financially.

As you go on your daily life today, stay connected, enrich your life by taking a friend out for a meal, give to charity, buy a sandwich for the homeless person sleeping on the street, smile, reach out, give a hug and make a difference.

In a world filled with COVID, we need to make a difference and be game-changers in society.

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