Entrepreneurship & Well-Being

If you are not familiar with it, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index tracks and measures the emotional, psychological and physical health of Americans across all sectors.  Their website is a fascinating current and historical snapshot of our country.  From their data, many important lessons can be learned about us – individually and collectively.

Recently, Gallup-Healthways published a report that demonstrated that entrepreneurs have the highest overall well-being of any occupational group – despite the fact that business owners work longer hours than any other category.  The research shows that working long hours doesn’t actually diminish one’s well-being with the exception of those who are not really engaged in their work.

The Gallup-Healthways report further breaks down the well-being ranking into six sub categories:

• Work Environment.  Entrepreneurs score 16 percentage points higher than the next highest occupation.  The ranking is based on job satisfaction, the ability to use strengths at work, and the level of trust and openness in the work environment.
• Basic Access.  This metric is based on access to basic needs, such as food, shelter, healthcare, and a safe, satisfying place to live.  Entrepreneurs placed fourth in this category, trailing Manager/Executives, Professionals, and Clerical.
• Emotional Health. Interestingly – but perhaps no surprise – those working in the Farming/Forestry sectors lead this category, followed by Professionals, Manager/Executives, and Entrepreneurs.
• Healthy Behavior.  This sub-index measures four behaviors strongly linked to physical health:  eating healthy, smoking, regular consumption of fruit & veggies, and frequency of exercise.  Again, Farming/Forestry workers lead this, followed closely by Entrepreneurs.
• Physical Health. This measures nine items that indicate chronic or daily illness.  Construction workers rate in a statistical tie with Manager/Executives, then Professionals, Sales, Installation, Farming/Forestry, followed by Entrepreneurs.  This is the category where Entrepreneurs rank lowest in the survey.
• Life Evaluation.  This measures where people evaluate their present and future lives on a scale of 1 to 10.  Entrepreneurs rank fourth in this category, trailing Professionals, Manager/Executives, and Sales workers.

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