Did You Know? Some of the World’s Great Entrepreneurs have Anxiety

By Clare BruceTuesday 1 Aug 2017Guests and ArtistsReading Time: 2 minutes

Listen: Sarah Wilson chats to Laura Bennett. Above: (L-R) Sarah Wilson, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg.

She’s a successful entrepreneur, journalist and TV personality, she’s author of a game-changing book and blog called I Quit Sugar, and she’s also a lifelong sufferer of anxiety.

So when Sarah Wilson wrote her memoir First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, she reflected on the fact that many entrepreneurial high flyers are anxious types too.

In a chat with Hope 103.2 she said anxiety, for some, goes hand in hand with creative tendencies. Having anxiety doesn’t have to mean you can’t achieve great things.

• Embracing Anxiety the First Step to Improving, Says Sarah Wilson 

“I think the anxious disorder precedes the innovation and creativity and risk taking,” she said. “It also means it can actually be really tough because you’ve got to manage a condition while you’re doing this incredible thing. It’s really worthwhile understanding the two go hand in hand.

“You don’t need to eradicate anxiety to manage a business. But it is important to find ways to keep it in check.”

Famous high-flyers with anxious tendencies have included Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.

Some of the famous high-flyers with anxious tendencies have included Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Interestingly, all three have shared the trait of wearing the same ‘capsule wardrobe’ every day, cycling their way through five identical shirts, jumpers and pants each week.

Sarah Wilson does a similar thing.

“Entrepreneurs, we do a lot of the same stuff, and it’s the only way we can actually be both creative, and innovative, but then also turn it into a successful business that lasts the distance,” she said.

“Throughout history, the risk takers, innovaters, leaders, shamans – community spiritual leaders in the past – tended to possess traits that now we would call obsessive compulsive, or bipolar and so on.

“It’s a really interesting correlation.”