As someone who experienced a lot of adversity as a child, and who advocates for childhood trauma and its impacts to be taken more seriously, there is often a lot of bad news to give.
Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is sobering. People who experienced 4 or more ACEs are significantly more likely to develop chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders and substance dependence. Experiencing 5 or more ACEs can reduce life expectancy by up to 20 years. So it is good to have some positive news to share.
While I would never want to diminish the very real struggles we face, a recent study has found that some of the adaptations that helped us survive when we were young can be powerful assets in adulthood, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Childhood trauma can make us great entrepreneurs
In their 2024 study, published in the Journal of Small Business Management, Nguyen & Tran found that entrepreneurs with childhood trauma scored higher on Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (a measure of the autonomous, proactive, innovative, competitive, and risk-taking traits that drive entrepreneurial success) than those without. Their study showed that for many, more trauma positively correlated with increased strengths in this area.
Why?
Early adversity imprints us deeply. Our nervous systems, beliefs, and coping patterns are shaped in those formative years (Cheng et al., 2021).
Surviving hardship often builds a higher tolerance for risk. When you’ve already lived through instability, uncertainty feels less threatening (Churchill et al., 2023).
Breaking unhelpful rules—from social norms to outdated industry practices—can feel natural when you’ve already had to challenge the status quo to survive (McDermott & Barik, 2014; Yu et al., 2023).
The silver lining of traumatic childhood experiences
This doesn’t mean childhood trauma is “good for you.” (I would much prefer to score low as an entrepreneur and have had a happy childhood!) It simply means that, for some, the same traits that once protected us in chaos can become assets in innovation, leadership and value creation. The researchers call this “the silver lining of traumatic childhood experiences.”
But these strengths often emerge only when healing has begun. Without doing the work to recover from the pain of the past, unprocessed trauma can fuel burnout, self-sabotage, or destructive risk-taking.
I love that this concept gives childhood trauma survivors an opportunity to see their past is not a life sentence, but a life story that can fuels the courage to build something extraordinary. That is how I have tried to re-frame the challenges I faced in my past, at least.
I am wondering, if you’ve experienced childhood adversity, how do you think it has shaped your approach to risk, innovation, or leadership?
Ruth Clare is an author, TEDx speaker, and intergenerational trauma educator whose work breaks silences and drives system change, especially for military families.
Developer of the Parenting After Trauma (PAT) program, Ruth's award-winning memoir, Enemy, was published by Penguin in 2016. Her TEDx talk, The Pain of Hiding Your True Self, has been viewed more than 600,000 times.