Success At The Cost Of Health

Don’t keep off spring, dear startup founders, even when funds freeze in winter chill.

When Zerodha cofounder and chief executive Nithin Kamath suffered a mild stroke last year, the media and influencer fraternity wondered how it could happen to a big-time advocate of fitness barely in his 40s. 

Kamath, known for his strict workout regime and aesthetic physique, shared later that it could have been triggered by his father’s demise or lack of sleep, exhaustion, dehydration, or excessive working out. But the incident set off an alarm bell – anyone could be hit by heart ailments, or cardiovascular diseases in medical parlance, without any indication well in advance. And, it is often directly linked to our overall lifestyle, food habits, sleep, stress level, or any kind of mental health issues. 

Regular exercise keeps us agile and helps prevent heart ailments to some extent, or reduce their toll on the body, or recover faster, but it cannot protect us from such a blow entirely. Is it inevitable? Not really. 

What drives us to discuss an unusual subject far from our field of interest? Why are we drifting from our daily dose of sector coverages, exclusives, breaking news, and investigative pieces? Is Inc42 changing the track? Not really. 

This article connects us to the root. It is the root that takes us to the top management, CXOs, founders, and entrepreneurs who have been instrumental to the blooming of the Great Indian Startup Ecosystem as the third largest in the world.    

Your health, dear startup parents, matters when it comes to India’s dream of growing into a global economic powerhouse. 

The subject attains higher relevance when we sit down and look back at the loss of several young Indian entrepreneurs who could propel India’s startup economy to a higher level. The devil was common in most cases – cardiac arrest. While the deaths came like blows to the heart of Digital India, Corporate India battled a raging debate over a 70-90-hour work week.

The old Latin adage of mens sana in corpore sano (sound mind in a sound body), fights for its meaning to corporate chiefs when client calls start raining, when rushing to pitch for investments, when time comes to clear the salaries, or when hurtling between cities. The first victim is the work-life balance.

The balance gets more distorted when there’s little or no time for regular checks on their physical and mental parameters or visiting the doctor for a nagging issue. The ultimate victim is a death knell from the heart. 

It’s time, dear entrepreneurs, let your health stake its claim on your priority list. 

In a recent public event, Peak XV managing director Mohit Bhatnagar urged founders to take care of themselves. “Life is hard,” he warned. “And, it’s not just about the startup that you are in or you are about to build. But, I think, all of us have a personal life, families, health issues, or both. First and foremost, my biggest advice to founders is to take care of yourself. I think, the most popular line… It’s okay to not be okay sometimes… Not everything in life, despite whatever your social media feeds say, is up and to the right all the time for everyone.” 

Bhatnagar’s words were no less than warnings. “Let me assure you, behind closed doors, even the best founders, even the best VCs, have their worst days and don’t know whether they’re going to be cut out for doing this. They all have the imposter syndrome. So you’re not alone in feeling insecure,” he added.

At a time when there is increased awareness about mental health, obesity and sedentary lifestyle, there’s no dearth of health-tracking devices, and reliable content at the click of a button, then why, dear young executives, are you refusing to love yourself a little more?

What’s Leading To Higher Risks Of Cardiovascular Diseases?

A report published by the Indian Heart Association over 20 years back highlighted demographic data to indicate that the rate of heart diseases among Indians was double that of national averages in the West. Around 50% of all heart attacks in Indian men occur under 50. The study said that underlying genetic reasons, metabolic deregulation, increasing consumption of saturated fats and trans fats (in junk foods), higher stress levels, and sedentary office work could be the attributing factors.

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Two decades have passed since the study went public, but little has changed. 

Cardiovascular surgeon and entrepreneur Dr Shriram Nene said the trend of early heart attacks among Indians is linked to smaller arteries and a high triglyceride-rich environment. “It has become worse because of metabolic syndrome and obesity, decreased exercise and sedentary lifestyle. Compound that with a high-stress environment, you now are at a higher-than-usual risk,” he told Inc42.

“Mental health is a thing. We need to prioritise how to take care of our mind by improving our thought processes. I think beacons of positivity in your life – good friends and family relationships, and spending time on yourself – are critical and can be clearly correlated. A study showed that loneliness can take 10-15 years off your life and that is equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day. So, mental health is a critical piece,” Dr Nene added.

Another major factor contributing to the increasing number of heart attacks among young entrepreneurs is their frequent travel across time zones and climatic conditions.

Yagnesh Sanghrajka, founder and former CFO of 100X.VC, an angel investor, said that working under tight schedules often aggravates stress. “Everything comes to planning well and setting expectations. When travelling across time zones, people often tend to run the time clock in their mind and try to run so fast and ahead of what’s natural to them that they often don’t sync, which leads to these problems,” he said.

Dr Nene, too, pointed out that frequent travel across time zones leads to loss of sleep, change in food habits, and lack of exercise, which stokes anxiety and depression by putting the body on the edge. “Stress has been a factor in strokes and heart attacks,” he said, adding that extremely busy professionals need to be wary of these things and try to manage food, sleep, and exercise better when they are on their normal schedule.

He also suggested that people with such tight schedules could use some adjuncts such as melatonin to recover faster.

The Work-Life Balance Debate

It is also undeniable that despite more awareness and discussions around burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, and the importance of a healthy diet and sleep, many top guns in the business world continue to remain the propagators of work beyond 48 hours a week, which also violates labour laws of the nation. From Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy voicing his suggestion for a 70-hour work week to the recent controversial statement by L&T chief SN Subrahmanyan on a 90-hour work week, the debate has only revved up without a solution in sight.

Many successful businessmen and startup founders have, however, voiced against an extended work week and said that they prefer quality over quantity of time spent. A few startup founders seemed more inclined towards a work-as-need-arises kind of approach.

For instance, ixigo founder Aloke Bajpai said in a recent LinkedIn post, “It may be wrong to impose such hours on the team as a matter of policy, but my experience says that if you love what you do, you never count the hours.”

“If employees can productively deliver in their 40-hour work shift, that’s good. Often, as founders, we encounter challenges with that. Besides, when the work demands, you have to stretch your working hours and manage it,” Shesh Rao Paplikar, CEO of BHIVE Workspace, told Inc42. 

Let’s Take A Humane Approach

There is no end to this debate of how much one needs to work, but surely, the matter can be approached from a more humane point of view. 

A victim of “toxic work culture” and “stressful work environment” at some of the multinationals he served, Sanghrajka believes that when people love their jobs and treat co-workers as family, these challenges to mental health can be addressed.

However, it is also true that when the job requires it, founders and employees often tend to stretch their work hours while compromising on the basics of running the most important project – their own body and mind.

“I think it’s critical to take an hour of power for yourself every single day, where you focus on a few things – one is diet, the second is exercise, the third is sleep, the fourth is water, and the fifth is mindfulness. As founders and entrepreneurs, we are frequently running from top to bottom. And I think it’s critical to make sure your health is a priority. You have to be cognisant of what your risk factors are for such diseases,” Dr Nene said. 

If someone has a family history of heart disease and also has diabetes and obesity issues while they need to work in a high-stress environment, according to him, the person has to work and address each of these problems individually, taking one step at a time.

BHIVE’s Paplikar said that given that the founders work in a highly stressful environment, they need to be more disciplined about their health. Just like monitoring his company through dashboards, Paplikar chooses to monitor his body through health tracking devices and is mindful of his food habits.

However, Dr Nene believes that while there are various apps and wearables that can help, the main thing is habit formation, which has to be deeply ingrained in the schedule of busy professionals.

Indian startups that were not as solvent as seasoned conglomerates till recent past and depended on funding by venture capital firms have waded through rough waters of the Covid-19 pandemic and funding winters. They proved their mettle even when the developed world grappled with endless headwinds. They have proven their resilience and inner strength. But if India has to keep up the momentum, its youth have to be more robust to face more challenges waiting to be unleashed.

Dear startup founders, please do not forget the words of the Oracle of Omaha. “You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll be a wreck forty years later, just like the car would be. It’s what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now,” legendary investor Warren Buffett had said.

[Edited by Kumar Chatterjee]

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