New research shows that disrupted sleep may help nudge people toward acting on their entrepreneurial ideas rather than continuing to ponder them.
Musk is perhaps the most famous of the chief sleep-deprived officers, telling The New York Times in 2018 that “it is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien.”
But a new study out of University of Central Florida and published in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice suggests these famous entrepreneurs may have always had issues sleeping. It was these ADHD-like tendencies that drove them to entrepreneurial behavior, helping them to launch their companies. But that’s not to say that people shouldn’t sleep.
“We’re not advocating depriving yourself of sleep to get ahead,” Jeff Gish, a professor of business at the University of Central Florida and co-author of the paper, said in a press release about the study. “We’re saying that there appears to be an interesting link between sleep and entrepreneurship. ADHD-like tendencies can be a benefit, rather than a hindrance in spurring ventures.”
