The Effect of Adhering to a Healthy Lifestyle on the Venture Creation Process

Abstract

Launching a venture consumes a great deal of cognitive resources and energy. Individuals who exhaust such resources during the venture creation process may not be able to successfully launch a venture. This paper investigates the factors that help prospective entrepreneurs effectively utilize their cognitive resources, fuel the necessary energy, and persevere in the process to successfully launch a venture. We argue that a healthy lifestyle that is multidimensionally defined by a healthy diet, regular exercising, moderate alcohol consumption, and no smoking fuels the cognitive energy that would-be-entrepreneurs are in need of during an exhaustive venture creation process. We propose that individuals with higher adherence to a healthy lifestyle are more likely to launch an entrepreneurial venture due to healthy life choices’ positive effect on entrepreneurial cognition in the form of a better functioning brain and higher positive well-being. We test the proposed relationships by using a comprehensive archival dataset from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer in Norfolk (EPIC-Norfolk study). We find that there is a positive relationship between healthy lifestyle and venture creation, fully mediated by entrepreneurial cognitive resources, specifically well-being. Yet, interestingly, we find that a superior executive function can become a barrier to business initiation, probably because prospective entrepreneurs with higher executive function can more clearly see and comprehensively assess the high risks and/or uncertainties involved in venture creation and, ultimately, give up the pursuit of their entrepreneurial ideas. Paradoxically, higher executive function may be a curse for prospective entrepreneurs, especially the ones who might have been very successful had they run their own business. We discuss the implications of our findings.