Establishing a company and becoming an entrepreneur is not as difficult as it used to be. This is especially true in the Nordic and Baltic countries, where the number of startups and scale-ups is constantly growing (Oslo Business Region, 2021). Entrepreneurship brings you the freedom to make your ideas come true, use your unique skills, decide how you want to work, and more. However, with this type of freedom comes the responsibility of results, mistakes, finances, failure and so on, which often brings daily harmful stress into entrepreneurs’ lives.
This is why we are organising a Stress Resilience workshop for entrepreneurs in Tallinn May 20th, 2022. Come and join your fellow founders to receive practical tips on handling stress from our Entre-MWB project team and mental health expert Dr Kadri Haljas from Triumf Health. More information and registration here: https://forms.gle/TDe9yxjaD4FyExKx9.
In addition to our workshop, there are other supportive actions targeting the mental health wellbeing of entrepreneurs in Baltic and Nordic countries. Learn more about them in the following paragraphs:
Estonia
Estonia has been a critical player in developing new approaches toward mental health issues in their population. Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and the Estonian government created Estonia’s national testbed program, Accelerate Estonia. The program combines the efforts of entrepreneurs and the public sector to find the most suitable solutions for the current societal needs, such as the need for efficient support in the area of mental health wellbeing.
In addition, to Accelerate Estonia, the Ministry of Social Affairs formed a mental health think tank. Märt Aro, the co-founder and chair of Nordic EdTech Forum, has been co-developing a document with the other experts from the mental health think tank as a basis for prototype creation. This online tool prototype is being built by VATEK (Estonian Mental Health and Welfare Coalition) and funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs.
Together with the initiatives coming from the Estonian government targeting the overall Estonian population, Startup Estonia has been raising awareness on the topic of mental health wellbeing of entrepreneurs and their teams via their podcast. Additionally, Estonian entrepreneurs are also taking action to improve the productivity of the workforce via solutions such as CoCoon, which aims to improve founders’ mental health by providing mentoring to founders and their teams.
Latvia
In Latvia, services supporting entrepreneurs are aware of the high prevalence of mental health issues in entrepreneurs. However, they claim that the awareness of this topic is very low in the general public. That is why Labs of Latvia shared an article including practical steps and experiences of entrepreneurs on topics such as burnout and encouraging entrepreneurs to track their emotional state, sleep patterns and measure their energy levels. Additionally, Labs of Latvia motivates entrepreneurs to seek the support of a mentor or coach with whom they can speak on a regular basis.
Lithuania
Act On Crisis (AOC), an app available to anyone in Lithuania, was developed to provide an emotional support tools package that includes breathing techniques, anonymous support communities and free therapy sessions with certified professionals. The Act On Crisis app was later on transformed into an app called Mindletic, a “mental gym” based solution that supports startups and corporate employees by monitoring their emotions to prevent burnout.
Finland
Finland is aware that most mental health services are time-consuming, expensive and difficult to access, especially for entrepreneurs. This is why Startup Foundation hosted a panel to raise awareness about mental health in entrepreneurs. The discussion underlined a set of skills that help founders to mitigate, resolve and prevent many mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and fatigue. Additionally, Sampo Accelerator runs mental health and wellbeing programmes for founders with hands-on workshops such as the one carried out by Dr Kadri Haljas from Estonian Triumf Health.
Sweden
Swedish founders have been raising awareness about mental health issues by sharing their experiences with mental health struggles when running a startup business. Such examples of founders are David Brudö (Remente) and Johan Bran (Kahoot) that have been open about their mental health wellbeing issues related to entrepreneurship.
Norway
Norway is looking at entrepreneurial activities from a scientific point of view. Asbjorn Grimsmo of Work Research Institute in Norway shares his research findings related to working outside regular working hours. Overworking, according to Gimsmo, has an impact on many areas of health such as cardiovascular diseases, digestion issues, and mental health. Grimsmo states that an entrepreneur who is not aware of the importance of physical and mental health wellbeing may not realise its consequences until years later when symptoms of insufficient self-care start exhibiting as physical illness.
Denmark
Denmark has been looking at the topic of mental health wellbeing from an investor perspective. According to PreSeed Ventures, the state of mental health, wellbeing and care of company founders is one of the aspects that determines the business’s success. For this reason, they launched Founder Mental Health Circle, confidential peer-to-peer support and learning group allowing founders to share and support each other. Moreover, Grilled by TechBBQ has launched a Mental Health project in partnership with Velliv Foreningen, where they “help entrepreneurs better orient themselves and their companies to reach their full potential — and keep a balanced life while they do it”.
Iceland
Startup Iceland got inspired by Techstarts’ documentary about entrepreneurship and mental health. This led Startup Iceland to invite coaches such as Jerry Colonna to assist them with supporting Icelandic startups and to bring attention to struggles faced by founders of this community.
Conclusion
Many inspirational activities focused on supporting the mental health wellbeing of entrepreneurs are being carried out in the Baltic and Nordic countries. The various areas of entrepreneurial support range from government-supported activities in Estonia and Latvia, awareness-raising activities in all the Baltic and Nordic countries and scientific results sharing in Norway, to the importance of venture capitals in the mental health support of entrepreneurs.
Register for our Stress Resilience workshop for entrepreneurs in Tallinn, May 20th here: https://forms.gle/TDe9yxjaD4FyExKx9.
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