This installment of the Start Something Series will feature Michael Lerman, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Iowa State.

About the Session: Entrepreneurial Health and Well-Being

The motivations for pursuing entrepreneurship are often rooted in facilitating greater well-being, such as creating a working context that allows the pursuit of one’s passions, facilitates greater autonomy, and is psychologically fulfilling. At the same time, entrepreneurship is one of the most stressful occupational settings, as entrepreneurs are prone to experience loneliness, work-life conflict, unusually high working hours, among other sources of stress. Amidst this paradox of, on one hand, a work environment that can be psychologically rewarding, and on the other hand, one that can be burdensome, is the reality that entrepreneurs need to be at their psychological best to adequately deliver value to the range of stakeholders (e.g., employees, investors, cofounders, customers) that are dependent on their action. Despite this, most entrepreneurship discourse focuses on the set of entrepreneurial actions one must employ to successfully develop a business without considering the role of entrepreneurs’ health and well-being in that process. This discussion will describe the meaning of founders’ health and well-being, review related literature pertaining to these underlying tensions of the entrepreneurial experience, and present tangible suggestions for facilitating greater health and well-being as an entrepreneur.