The Psychology of Entrepreneurship
Growing entrepreneurs, their teams, and their impact.
As an entrepreneur, you're either growing or managing growth, all while navigating a dynamic environment, a busy personal life, and countless relationships. Founders who thrive through this do so by building themselves as they build their companies.
I help with this by working with entrepreneurs, business schools, and accelerators to design and deliver evidence-based approaches to scaling founders with their companies.
My work draws on my experience and research in Positive Organizational Psychology, using experiments to understand how entrepreneurs can better manage thoughts, emotions, and relationships to enhance their well-being, leadership, and ultimately performance. I’ve tied this work together in a new book that integrates stories and empirical evidence on the approaches that world-class founders use to develop themselves.
Building on my work as a venture-backed tech cofounder, I am pursuing systems approaches to enhance the design, delivery, and evaluation of entrepreneurship programs across different regions and countries. A focus of my research and work is developing AI-powered trainings to strengthen the decision-making of founders—helping them refine their beliefs, test assumptions, and take better-informed action.
Teaching Testimonials:
To hear it from the entrepreneurs I teach:
“Your method of teaching is phenomenal. You ask the right questions, use the right amount of humour. Super engaging.“
“The Professor does a great job of assessing what we want to get out of the course and how the course can help meet those goals.”
“Luke cares, is knowledgeable, and is a great mentor”
“Best course I have taken at Dal to date”
“I think it was great, I think this was the first class in my whole degree of four years where I got to know so many of my classmates fairly well.”
“I love the environment of the class, it is very welcoming“
“Applied Entrepreneurship & Innovation was the most engaging and practical course I’ve taken at Dalhousie so far. We had the opportunity to learn from many different successful entrepreneurs (Including Prof DeCoste), participated in an atmosphere that made meaningful relationships, and learned applicable entrepreneurial skills. If you have any aspirations of being an entrepreneur or are interested at all in entrepreneurial ventures, this class is a must-take!”
Entrepreneurship Coaching
As an entrepreneur, coaching helped me a lot. Research shows that coaching increases positive traits like self-awareness, confidence, mindfulness, resilience, empathy, and self-compassion. Much of this benefit comes from the unique opportunity to discuss what is happening in your life with someone focused entirely on helping you clarify, and implement your goals. While coaching entrepreneurs, I use open-ended Socratic questions, championing, challenging, and dot-connecting to help you talk through what is on your mind, and what is and isn’t working. Hopefully, we do it while walking in nature.
To let you hear it from a Founder I coach,
“To have someone chat with me through the direct, and not so direct obstacles associated with the startup life, clearly translates to reduced life friction, and better self awareness so I can perform better even when we aren't able to fit walks in.”
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Coaching Testimonials:
“For me, Luke is spot on in his balance between constructive criticism, complimenting my strengths, and being an active listener when I benefit from that space.”
“That was magic. You ask amazing questions.”
“The thing that stands out to me the most is how Luke has been there, done that. He's been in situations where partners, parents, friends, and self demand more than a startup can provide space for.”
“His interest in what I'm doing is meaningful to me. He asks amazingly thoughtful and relevant questions. He can hold space well and frequently makes space to hold space. When he gives you his full presence, you feel very seen and heard.”
“Just having someone believe in me, and what I want to do, is extremely validating and heartwarming”
“The insights Luke has shared have blown me away. I have yet to leave a conversation without a nugget to deeply reflect on.”
“His listening skills, his curiosity and his framing are so solid. I have never once felt that Luke was distracted or not 100% present when speaking with him.“
“I call Luke when I am facing difficult choices. He helps me figure out what I am looking for.”
“Luke is extremely helpful when I need someone to help me weigh options, to be honest with me, to help me align a decision with my values, and when I need someone who understands complexity in systems.”
Who I am:
My work is informed by constant efforts to help organizations thrive, including:
Buying, building, and selling a number of ventures over my career, including Co-Founding the recently acquired proofgov.com, an alumni of Techstars and Creative Destruction Lab.
Helping students start companies by teaching courses on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Dalhousie University.
Co-Founding MindFrameconnect.com to develop the resilience of Founders and their teams at the country’s top accelerators.
Designing and delivering coaching for Founders and accelerators.
Advising Founders as a board member, investor, entrepreneur-in-residence, and friend.
Researching entrepreneurial mindsets, and coaching as part of a Ph.D. in Positive Organizational Psychology with Claremont Graduate University.
Participating in Canada’s top leadership forms, including Co-Chairing a Study Tour of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.
My work is grounded in mindfulness, including:
A multi-year daily meditation practice.
Graduating from Google’s Search Inside Yourself Leadership program and an Inner MBA from Mindful New York University.
Want to Chat?
Psychology of Entrepreneurship Research
To give a sense of my research, here are a few areas I focus:
Entrepreneurial Well-Being and Action: Success in entrepreneurship depends on action, including opportunity identification, evaluation, and exploitation (Baron, 2007; Frese & Gielnik, 2023). This action is crucial for job creation and economic growth (Acs, 2006; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, n.d.). However, a significant challenge lies in the high psychological toll entrepreneurship takes (Freeman et al., 2015). My research delves into the critical link between well-being and action. Entrepreneurs face significant stressors like uncertainty, resource constraints, and workload, which negatively impacting their well-being (Shir et al., 2019; Stephan et al., 2023). Conversely, impaired well-being can hinder action (Stephan, 2018).
The Role of Emotional States and Mindfulness: Entrepreneurial well-being and action are further influenced by affective states (emotions) (Baron, 2007; Cardon et al., 2012; Shepherd & Patzelt, 2020; Stephan et al., 2023). Entrepreneurs experience a dynamic range of emotions, with it often described as an emotional rollercoaster (De Cock et al., 2020; Uy et al., 2017). Research suggests positive affect predicts entrepreneurial performance, while negative affect hinders it (Fodor & Pintea, 2017). One promising avenue for regulating emotions is through interoception, or awareness of bodily sensations (James, 1884; Nummenmaa et al., 2014). Emerging research suggests mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) may enhance interoception and improve well-being (Lima-Araujo et al., 2022).
Neurodiversity in Entrepreneurship: This area is another facet of my research interests. Understanding the unique experiences and challenges faced by neurodiverse entrepreneurs is crucial for fostering a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Entrepreneurial Coaching: The beneficial behaviours of Entrepreneurial Coaching were identified in research published in Applied Psychology in 2020 (shown below).
Want to discuss any of this?