FEAR

For my second post I wanted talk a little about one of the main barriers people have in starting a business..Fear.  Fear of failure, fear of what people might think, fear of losing money etc.   First off you must understand one really important thing about fear.  F.E.A.R stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.   Mark Twain once said "I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened"  Twain was referring to the fact that we spend a lot of time thinking about troubles that could happen, but most of these troubles are in our head and actually never happen.  Now I'm not saying snap out of it and stop being fearful; fear is a human emotion and not something we can just ignore but we do need to manage our fears.  Mark Twain also said "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear".   It is true, entrepreneurs do think differently than those who are not entrepreneurs but they still have fear. They are not immune to this, however the difference is how they manage the fear and do not let it stop them from taking the action required. For me a powerful way to manage fear is to take action.  Action will always beat inaction!  "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy". -Dale Carnegie another great quote is  "I never worry about action, but only inaction."  Winston Churchill.  

There will always be risk in any business venture, so fear is a part of it. Having fear however is not a sign you should not do it.  Your friends may even try to tell you not to do it, often they have fears of their own they will project on to you.  However if your friend has never been in business before or successful in business themselves why would you listen to them in the first place?  Do you know when a lobster is dropped in a pot of boiling water and tries to crawl out the other lobsters in the pot pull him back in?  Think about that!  


We all have fear. Any time we venture into something new we will experience fears, just understand it is natural but its not a barrier for you.  One thing I fear more than failure is not taking any action and looking back on my life and wondering "what if", having ideas and not acting on any of them, and not creating anything.  Going through life working at a job I hate, making a wage I hate and working with people I don't like is a much bigger fail to me than any failure in business.  I can bounce back from any failure in business. They hurt some times and may put you in a little debt but you will come out of it with lessons worth far more than what you may lose financially.  "There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction".  J.F.K    To me taking no action and living a life I did not set out for myself has much higher risks...a life you don't want to live. People that know me well know I have had several businesses over the years starting from the time is was in elementary school.  I have had and have now some successful companies, but have some failed?  Have they ever!  It didn't kill me though. I'm still here and what I learned from those failures was priceless. 

In closing what I want you to take from this is: if there is something you want, don't allow fear to stop you. Manage your fear by taking action towards what you want.  My next post I will talk about a plan to take action.