Hypomania, as I only learned myself recently, is a highly-aroused mental state that is a milder form of mania. ![]() For his book, The Hypomanic Edge, a prominent American psychologist asked a group of entrepreneurs whether a list of hypomanic symptoms were traits that they would associate with entrepreneurs (Gartner, 2005). More importantly, successful entrepreneurs need to be passionate, obsessive, optimistic, and hard working. ![]() So knight’s move thinking allows entrepreneurs to identify cross-market trends and predict ‘the next big thing.’ However, while a big idea is a good starting point to inspire people to join a new entrepreneurial venture, product superiority plays a minor role in entrepreneurial outcomes (Roure & Keeley, 1990). The result was certainly more than the sum of its parts, and it’s hard to imagine a world without smartphones nowadays. In Steve Job’s launch presentation for the iPhone, he placed great emphasis on how they had combined a music player, phone and web browser into a single device (Apple Inc, 2007). ![]() The name comes from chess, where a knight is the only piece able to move in a non-linear fashion, jumping further ahead. Knight’s move thinking describes a lateral reasoning process based on loose associations, leading to an unexpected conclusion that defies conventional logic. Having written her thesis on entrepreneurship and schizophrenia, my holiday psychologist hypothesised that it was ‘knight’s move thinking’ that connects entrepreneurial insights and schizophrenic derailment. While the higher levels of stress experienced by entrepreneurs could support the conclusion that entrepreneurship can trigger depression and addiction, the same is not likely for ADHD and bipolar, which are more likely to be diagnosed before entrepreneurial endeavours. A more general link between entrepreneurship and psychopatholog was shown in a recent US study, which found that entrepreneurs were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with depression, three times as likely to suffer from addiction, six times as likely to have been diagnosed with ADHD and ten times more likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder (Freeman, Staudenmaier, Zisser, & Andresen, 2018). Fifteen years ago, I met a random psychologist on holiday who told me that entrepreneurship and schizophrenia run in the same families – as they do in mine. ![]() As Steve Jobs observed, it can pay to think differently. However, my recent diagnosis of bipolar II disorder has led me to appreciate the double-edged nature of my unusual neuropsychology. I’ve always felt my career success came despite mental health challenges. Having lived my adult life at the extreme ends of both the wealth and mental health spectrums, it’s probably a bit of both. ‘Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently they’re not fond of rules… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.’Ī venture capitalist once commented that he couldn’t work out whether I was crazy or a genius.
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