How Happy Are Entrepreneurs Really?

The Entrepreneurial Happiness Index™ is based on a quarterly survey of entrepreneurs, business owners and self-employed professionals from across the world.

To take part go to www.howhappy.info

The EHI Report for the last quarter of 2010 shows that entrepreneurs are not obsessed with money, although they are firmly aware of the need to keep the cash flow alive in their businesses, while  they believe that they will get most joy from their relationships with other people.

When asked about the three most important things in their lives that make them really happy, 32% of the respondents say that wealth, cash flow or money are important, while more than double that figure (a whopping 72%) say that it is other people that make them happy. Productive work, religion, rock-and-roll and making a contribution to a better world also feature.

Respondents are in general more happy now than they were a year ago, with 60% of saying they have increased their overall happiness, 28% saying they are at the same level as a year ago, and only 12% saying they are less happy now. They score their general happiness as 3.88 out of 5 (or 77.6%), which is seemingly a fairly high level of general happiness.

Countries represented in the Forth Quarter 2010 Sample were Australia, India, New Zeeland, Namibia, South Africa and the USA.

While the intention with the EHI is to create a representative and comparatively sound measure of how happy entrepreneurs say they are, it is important to note that the sampling of voluntary participation by entrepreneurs active on social media, as applied by the EHI, is in innovative method for gathering data.