How Mental Resilience Furthered Entrepreneurship
In 2016, I was assaulted and woke from a coma about a month later. My brain had hemorrhaged, and I had already had emergency surgery to remove half my skull. I was eventually pieced back together, like Humpty-Dumpty, but I lost some memory recall. I also found myself epileptic, with PTSD, and deaf in my left ear.
The trajectory of my life changed dramatically after this. Now, I focus on empowering others at scale so they don’t suffer as I did. This means leveraging technology to help people in emergencies.
So, I founded a business that builds new safety response, prevention, and prosecution infrastructure by leveraging emerging and existing technologies. Zeer can be activated on a smartphone or connected device and immediately streams data to a cloud, emergency contacts, and first responders. It is an autonomous safety response system that uses machine learning and connected devices.
People are often shocked and surprised that I used my experiences to start a business hellbent on keeping others safe. Sometimes they ask how I do it. Great words for it may be chutzpah, tenacity, or determination. But there is more than a fair amount of mental resilience in this too. Being an entrepreneur can be pretty lonely. Being an entrepreneur with a disability needs a whole new level of dedication. I admire everyone who does so.
When I started this business in 2017, I was met with firm objections. “You’re not healthy enough to start and operate a business.” “You can’t do this after a traumatic brain injury and a month-long coma.” Even my family, lovingly, questioned my abilities. But it didn’t matter because I was determined to do it.
I didn’t let their worries, their anxieties, their fears push me in any direction other than the one I wanted to pursue.
The first year of Zeer may have been filled with seizures, depression, anger, and failed relationships. Still, it was also filled with significant wins, tons of learning curves, and a burning desire to make a safer world for the people I love, which happens to be everyone.
-Adam David Jones, CEO and Founder, www.zeersafe.com
