Some weeks ago, I discovered that I was extreme unhappy.

It was not that I didn't do well. In fact, I was pushing myself to do extra things than normal days. But I just hated everything. If I went to work, i started to hate the day the moment i left my house; as a healthcare founder, i was disappointed at not being able to loose that belly fat; i disliked the professor who taught the genetic class because i could not understand her; i blamed the investor who dislike my idea because he discourage me to do anything after meeting him...

Oh and my car broke down, DMV gave me a hard time, and my bf was overseas, and my friends did not have time for me and my entrepreneur friends all have just recently raised MORE money for their startup...

If you ever tried to chase your dream, you would probably understand what I am saying here. That loneliness, jealousy and un-satisfaction are so ingrained that we thought the whole world owes us $100,000,000 dollars. At the end, I just completely locked myself up.

After going through the depression, I looked back and realized something: It is all about me, me working too hard and not too hard at the same time that I had confused myself. But let's be clear on one thing first, it is not depression, it is:

Illusional Depression

(and it is treatable)

Here is the lesson I learned during my illusional depression I will remember for life:

1. Working hard does not get me anywhere, working hard on ONE thing at A time until my body does not function will.

It is not that my professor did not teach well, it is me who did not go deep into the materials enough, which led me to not understanding the class. It is not that the investor thought we are stupid, it is us who wanted to change the world overnight and took too many directions all at once.
- Results: I ended up studying a whole weekend for 8 hours/day and I got a distinction in that class (see my prove below). Once we decided to stick with 1 direction, all our employees were more enthusiastic and put more time at work.

2. Working 4-5 days a week is hard? Please work 6-7 days a week.

every 40 minutes run makes me sweat. But this is just losing water; every 1 hour of extra time for my startup makes me feel good. But we are not yet executing. So I decided to add muscle training and trained till my muscle is too sore to move; work even on Friday night Saturday and Sunday to make sure the startup is progressing as planned.
- Results: The abs is forming and my startup has on the beta phase.

3. Reach out with fearless confidence.

You think your friends do not like you? No, if they don't like you, they would have deleted you on facebook. Remember last time you posted anything or texted your friends? If it is more than 1 week ago, please reach out. At the same time, build and own a fearless confidence: be active, be humble and keep learning! So one day just completely out of the blue: i texted almost everyone who i have met in the past 6 months, I kept taking more classes online, we dumped our previous idea and re-start a brand new idea (it is not easy, because we have had it for 1 year).
- Results: they all miss me and invited me to trips and hence my vacation has been filled with plans up to next summer; I learned more in healthcare (thanks for Coursera and EdX) that had been very helpful for us to re-shape our startup's idea and to my dad's treatment; my co-founder and i finally discovered the best-ever idea since we worked together.

4. It is really you. The world will change when you change your mindset.

I am not trying to be philosophical here. Of course we are very highly likely to die if we jump out of a plane in the air even if we believe we won't die. But the sentence applies to us: if we believe the world and people are against us, they really are; but if we believe the society and friends are with us, they certainly are.
- Results: I am happier, people around me are happier, the world to me looks happier.

p.s. I found out that almost 67% of the entrepreneurs I have talked to in the past week have been to a similar kind of depression. We really are not alone.