Neil Seeman is co-founder and CEO of Sutherland House Experts. He is also an author, educator, essayist, lawyer, and mental health advocate.
At the University of Toronto, he teaches at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and is a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Massey College, and the Investigative Journalism Bureau.
Neil is also an academic advisor to the Health Informatics, Visualization, and Equity (HIVE) Lab at the University of Toronto. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the U of T’s School of Continuing Studies.
He is a regular contributor to Nikkei Asia, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Healthcare Quarterly and other publications. He is the founder and former CEO of RIWI, a publicly traded Big Data company. He was a founding editorial board member of the National Post and co-founder of the Health Strategy Innovation Cell.
Neil has published his research on mental health topics in Nature, Synapse, and in other leading academic journals. He is the co-author of three books on mental health, including XXL: Obesity and the Limits of Shame, which was a finalist for the Donner Book Prize and was selected as an “outstanding” title by the University Press Books Committee.
He is the author, most recently, of Accelerated Minds: Unlocking the Fascinating, Inspiring, and Often Destructive Impulses that Drive the Entrepreneurial Brain, published by Sutherland House Books. Neil’s book has been declared a “must-read” for 2023 by The Next Big Idea Club, a list curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink.
Seeman is a graduate of the University of Toronto Law School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He lives in Toronto and works with compassionate people to try to understand morality and virtue in current times.
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Why are some people compelled to take big risks on big ideas, attempting to change a market or, indeed, the world in ways that others find delusional? And why do they keep trying, again and again, often after repeated failures and at great personal expense?
Neil Seeman is one of those people: an internet entrepreneur steeped in North American start-up culture. He is also the son of one of Canada’s most important brain scientists.
Drawing on his own business experience and his father’s research into the brain’s processing of risk and reward, Seeman explains the entrepreneurial mindset -the world’s primary wealth creation engine- is in fact a form of addiction.
The highs experienced by individuals when they are solving problems or making breakthroughs are so enormously generative and exciting, and the lows so tormenting and debilitating, that they live on an unsustainable hamster wheel of constant striving and often wind up destroying the very things that they helped create.
With compassion and deep insight, he suggests ways in which the vital energies of the entrepreneurial class can be directed in a more constructive and sustainable manner.
“Accelerated Minds is a great book if you’re an entrepreneur – to put yourself at ease.”
-David Meltzer, co-founder of Sports 1 Marketing, former CEO of Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment, and the real-life “Jerry Maguire”
“If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re interested in your own mental health, like on Friday nights when you don’t have money to pay your employees and you’re trying to figure it out, and your mental health is going down the shitter, get his book (Accelerated Minds): it can help you.”
- Kevin McDonald, Founder of KMmedia.pro and Host of Positive Talk Radio
"Neil Seeman’s Accelerated Minds is an important addition to every entrepreneur’s bookshelf. It provides an excellent starting point for self-reflection into the entrepreneur’s mindset and motivation."
- Eldon Sprickerhoff, Co-Founder of eSentire
"Absolute must read — especially for any creative types. And also the medical community too. I couldn’t put it down!"
- Rebecca Eckler, bestselling author, publisher and founder, RE:BOOKS
"Fascinating book about the mental health issues behind entrepreneurship. Neil Seeman explains in a very eloquent way how our brains and neurotransmitters (namely dopamine) work, and how they affect the entrepreneurial mind. These topics are very important and should be talked about more. Thanks for this amazing book!"
- Mathieu Martin, Portfolio Manager, Rivemont Investments
“Neil Seeman’s Accelerated Minds offers novel and sometimes shocking insights into the entrepreneurial mind and its wiring. While he cautions us about the potential mental health problems for these modern ‘business gladiators’, he highlights the many benefits of the entrepreneur’s life and provides constructive advice on how to stay healthy when leading a growing venture.”
- Andy Burgess, Former Co-Founder and CEO, Somerset Entertainment
"I found Accelerated Minds deeply engaging and enlightening. I love interesting writing styles – almost as much as content – and this was also delightful."
- Amy Hauck Newman, Ph.D., addiction scientist
“Neil Seeman courageously examines the excesses of forms of entrepreneurialism unmoored from historic conceptions of innovation for the greater good. He is the first to explain how entrepreneurs, artists, and risk-takers of all types can better manage the successive bursts of dopamine swooshing in their brains.”
– Lord Anthony St John, Crossbench Member of the House of Lords
"I loved Accelerated Minds. It offers new and arresting insights about a fundamental feature of capitalism: what it is that motivates entrepreneurs to take the extraordinary risks they do, and why that motivation matters for prosperity."
- Andrew Stark, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto
“This timely book amalgamates an autobiography, frank descriptions of mission-driven or profit-driven entrepreneurs, their anguished personal and professional risks, with conceivable underlying biological drivers.”
– Bertha K. Madras, PhD, professor of psychobiology, Harvard Medical School
“Combining scholarly analysis with dramatic personal history, Neil Seeman clearly frames the mental challenges entrepreneurs face, and offers hope for the future. A real dopamine rush.”
– Myles Druckman, MD, senior vice president and global medical director, International SOS
“Accelerated Minds is a tour de force. Seeman offers no less than a treatise on entrepreneurship, a primer on dopamine in neuromodulation, and a touch of philosophy—and he makes it all gel elegantly.”
– Frederick Lowy, OC, MD, FRCP, former dean of medicine, University of Toronto, and former president and vice-chancellor of Concordia University
“In Accelerated Minds, Neil Seeman boldly suggests a new way of thinking about mental health among entrepreneurs. These innovators or ‘wild spirits’ risk everything to turn their dreams into reality and are responsible for much of society’s economic growth. It’s a rough road, however. Seeman offers a broad and, fittingly, entrepreneurial discussion about how to support these important individuals.”
- Sonia Arrison, Author of 100 Plus, Board Director, The Thiel Foundation
“If you are interested in what drives the entrepreneurial spirit, this book is for you. If you are entrepreneurial, it flags several warning signs for your business and mental health. If you think ‘phew I’m not like that,’ think again.”
- Lawrence Spero, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology (retired), University of Toronto
“Seeman’s personal, professional, and scientific threads resonate and make sense of the character types and biological underpinnings of entrepreneurial behavior.... Accelerated Minds also spotlights, in vivid detail, the true vulgarity of excess in today’s entrepreneurial sphere.”
- George Tolomiczenko, PhD, Executive Director, Merkin Institute for Translational Research, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
“This is a truly fascinating and timely offering about two of the most potent forces we know: entrepreneurialism and dopamine. I highly recommend it.”
- Jim Lavery, Conrad N. Hilton Chair in Global Health Ethics, Rollins School of Public Health and Center for Ethics, Emory University