Building a Million Dollar Business Almost Gave Me a Nervous Breakdown… Here’s Why

It was late. I was the last one in the office again. Working. Worrying.

My chest felt tight. It was like that a lot of the time these days.

I was stressed on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

What used to be a small, manageable business turned into a monster that constantly asked for more.

The company had grown dramatically over the past few years. As a result, the outgoings had crept up to over $60,000 a month.

I was now responsible for over 10 full-time employees, numerous freelancers, and a range of products. Not to mention an office in town big enough for a company five times our size.

The pressure of keeping revenue at such a high level going forward turned out to be crippling.

I knew I couldn’t go on like this. I knew things had to change before it killed me. I just wasn’t sure how I was going to do it.

The pressure of it all reached a peak in 2013. It’s only now, 10 years later I can look back and understand why things happened the way they did.

There’s a lot more to this story. Some of the details are mundane, some a little more exciting. But I think it deserves to be unpacked and dissected to pull out the valuable lessons.

As well as sharing some of this online, I’m going to write a book. Perhaps I should say I’m going to finish writing a book. You see, I’ve started many times before, but each time I’ve dropped the idea.

Because even after all I’ve achieved, I still feel like an imposter. I still feel like I just got lucky.

I have a stack of half-finished chapters and fragments of stories that deserve to be finished. I owe it to myself to finish the book. I can’t promise I’ll publish the book, but I promise to share some writing along the way.

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