South African author Tiisetso Maloma will next month release his book “The Anxious Entrepreneur”, aimed at informing entrepreneurs on how to defuse anxiety and depression and make them more productive.
The Anxious Entrepreneur, subtitled “Anxiety Defeats Creativity – Creativity Defeats Anxiety”, is Maloma’s third book on entrepreneurship, and is inspired by research that suggests entrepreneurs are more highly prone to mental problems than the rest of society.
A study entitled “Are Entrepreneurs Touched with Fire” by Dr Michael Freeman, which surveyed 242 entrepreneurs, found 72 per cent had mental health concerns, 49 per cent had one or more lifetime mental health conditions, and 5.4 per cent were suicidal.
Maloma’s book is based on the premise that anxiety defeats creativity and productivity, and provides a guideline on how to manoeuvre from anxiety to creativity and productivity. It is a collection of anecdotes, emotions, feelings, frustrations and philosophies where anxiety was decreased when a mode of creativity was given space.
“This book is like my own manifesto of how to zone out from anxiety and zone into creativity or productivity,” Maloma told Disrupt Africa.
“Sometimes we are anxious about things that time will take care of, but we dwell so much on the anxiety that we do not get productive. The impact I hope it will have is to get people to be more productive and have a clue of what to do when anxiety visits.”
He said there have been occasions in the past where he was on the brink of having a panic attack, and had identified ways of tackling it.
“When you are stressed, you are less productive, therefore not creative. You need zone out of that stress,” Maloma said.
The Anxious Entrepreneur comes out on October 28, with pre-orders available on Amazon, Apple iBookstore and Kobo.co.za. South African pre-orders are available here.
