Vale Mike……If You’re Running a Small Business and Feel Alone, Please Read This

A few weeks ago, I lost my cousin, Mike.

Mike was a small business owner. He was a provider, a leader for his family, the person everyone else leaned on. Over the last twelve months he was also carrying health problems, and the weight of a business that wasn’t going the way he’d planned. He fought hard, the way so many small business owners do — quietly, privately, trying to hold it all together so no one else would have to worry. A few weeks ago, that fight became too much, and we lost him.

I’m writing this for Mike. But I’m also writing it for you, if you’re reading this and you recognise something of yourself in his story.

I know that place

I run a small business too. So I want to be honest about what it can actually feel like, because I think we don’t say it out loud often enough.

When the business isn’t prospering the way you planned, something happens to you. You get tunnel vision. You lose sight of the big picture. The anxiety becomes a physical thing you carry around all day, and the only time it really lets go of you is when you’re asleep — so sleep becomes the only place that feels okay, and waking up becomes the hardest part of the day.

You go to work when you shouldn’t. You go to work when you’re unwell, because you don’t feel like you have a choice. You’re the provider, the leader, the one holding the roof up, and you tell yourself you just have to push through. So you stay stoic. You keep supporting everyone around you. And the whole time, you’re backed up against a wall, fighting every single waking hour, when what you actually need is just a break.

That’s a very lonely place to be. And the cruel part is that the loneliness convinces you that you’re the only one in it — that reaching out would be a sign you couldn’t cope, that everyone else has it figured out. None of that is true. So many of us have been exactly where you are right now.

The thing I most want you to hear

Being strong for your family does not mean carrying this alone.

The version of strength that says “say nothing, push through, protect everyone else from the truth” is the version that nearly broke me, and it’s the version that takes too many good people from us. Real strength — the kind your family actually needs from you — is being here. And sometimes being here means letting someone in.

You don’t have to have the answers. You don’t have to explain it perfectly. You don’t even have to know what you want to say. You just have to tell one person that things are hard right now.

If that person could be me, then let it be me

If you’re running a small business and you feel alone, I want you to know that I’m here. Not as an expert with a five-step plan, but as someone who has sat in that same chair at 2am, who knows what that wall feels like, and who is genuinely happy to listen.

Reach out. We can have a coffee, a phone call, or just trade a few messages. No judgement, no pressure, no agenda. Sometimes the only thing that loosens the grip of all that pressure is saying it out loud to someone who gets it — and I promise you, I get it.

You are not a burden. You are not failing. You are a person carrying something heavy, and you’re allowed to put some of it down.

Vale, Mike

I wish my cousin had known how many people would have dropped everything to sit with him. I can’t change that now. But if writing this means one person reaches out instead of going quiet, then something good comes from a loss that otherwise makes no sense at all.

If that person is you — please reach out. Today, if you can.

If you’re struggling right now, you don’t have to wait. In Australia, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, any time, day or night. Beyond Blue also runs New Access for Small Business Owners, a free and confidential mental health coaching program built specifically for people like us. And if it’s the financial side that’s crushing you, the Small Business Debt Helpline on 1800 413 828 offers free, independent advice. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 000.

In memory of Michael my cousin.