This is your brain. This is your brain on entrepreneurship. Any questions?
“There’s this risk of being consumed by the journey of entrepreneurship to exclusion of everything else.”
On the podcast this week we have Michael A. Freeman, M.D., founder of Econa, a global centre of excellence for entrepreneur mental wellness based in San Francisco. Freeman is a professor of psychiatry at UCSF, a serial entrepreneur of 10-plus years, and a mental health researcher.
This episode was actually born from a conversation with Whitney Sales on a previous episode about the dangers of coaches and managers overlapping with psychologists. Sales just happened to know someone who could provide an expert perspective not often available to entrepreneurs (those looking for management advice can also find it in past BetaKit podcast episodes).
Beyond feeling both seen and attacked by Dr. Freeman’s analysis, I left the conversation with two new insights: entrepreneurship amplifies certain mental traits (for good and for bad); but founders also share certain commonalities that draw them into entrepreneurship. We really do think different.
That said, the unique burdens of a beautiful mind and the requirements of entrepreneurship can be hard to bear. Dr. Freeman also lays out steps founders can take to promote positive mental health during trying times. Remember: if you heard yourself in this episode, it means you are not alone.
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Black Swan is a BetaKit podcast. Hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Edited by Kattie Laur. Produced with support from TWG.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash.