Kevin Kelly’s Blog

 Fear of Failure

Fear of failure has been consistently the number one obstacle to people pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams worldwide for the past decade. (Source: Global Entrepreneurial Monitor.)

Have no fear - failure brings you closer to success, as long as you learn from the process.

So fail indeed as Samuel Beckett says fail better the next times around - your dreams and goals are waiting round the corner.

All the great inventors agree! Dyson, Edison, Google Guys and more.

Entrepreneurial Warning!

Warning! Fail better means you learn from your failure  - it doesn’t mean repeating the thinking that created the failure in the first instance. Failure should be the catalyst for new thinking, new strategy bringing you closer to success.

Repeating the failed thinking is the equivalent of entrepreneurial insanity - a place where you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Cross the bridge from inaction to action and watch your fears dissipate and the journey ahead become clearer and clearer.

Remember fear is similar to any limiting belief is like a muscle - the more you use it, the stronger it gets; the less you use it, the more it atrophies and dies.

Entrepreneurial Focus:

Focus on the dream, feel the fear but take action anyway and enjoy the journey of magic and adventure.

If you hear yourself speaking the following words, time to review your leadership strategy

“Nobody does it better…..than me!”

A fairly unlikely scenario I would have thought - remember as the chinese proverb goes, when I sit in the company of three, one or the other have something to teach me.

“I cannot afford to hire a specialist in a key area.”

Rephrase - you cannot afford not to. Many entrepreneurs start out with a fantastic idea in their mind, their specialist area is production, but lack in other key areas as marketing, finance etc. When you recruit the right person, they will more than pay for themselves in time.

Which brings me onto the following….

“They are too confident, I am not comfortable in their presence.”

Oftentimes your uncomfortableness is down to your insecurity. Remember people like each other that are like each other. So oftentimes they will recruit people that don’t challenge them - the safe bet! To survive and thrive at the highest level, you need to move outside your comfort zone and experience and learn from pain. Recruit talent even at the cost of personal pain! The pain will dissipate when you see the results.

Control isn’t good as Lenin said.

Leadership Lesson

Strive to find comfort in the uncomfortable!

• Leadership Styles: Are you Authoritarian, Democratic, Servant, Thoughtful. All of the above styles have their merits, some many demerits….more
• Motivational Keynote Speaker: How to develop a career in the motivational speaking market is a question I have been asked many, many times around the world over the past two decades…more
• Motivational Keynote Speaker - the Sequel!: Ten years ago, in my past life as a business consultant, I read somewhere that the average person is hit with three thousand marketing messages a week. Can you imagine what this is figure is today?…more
• Entrepreneurship - the Failure Myth: According to Global Entrepreneurial Monitor (GEM) fear of failure is the top reason given in Ireland and worldwide by aspiring entrepreneurs for not starting their own businesses…more
• Entrepreneurs go for gut: Many successful businesspeople would identify their intuition or gut instincts as their compass and mentor. Without it, they wouldn’t have achieved the “unachievable.”..more

As they journey on the path of entrepreneurship, many successful businesspeople would identify their intuition or gut instincts as their compass and mentor. Without it, they wouldn’t have achieved the “unachievable.”

“Don’t let the noise of other people drown out your inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become,” advises Steve Jobs, Apple Computer CEO

So what is intuition or gut? For some it is a feeling in their stomach, for others, a compelling vision, and for more its an inner voice; all of which are promoting with conviction, a course of action.

It works best when there is no emotional connection to its finding.

Follow your Gut – Be an Entrepreneur!

Nurturing your intuition allows you to connect with an intelligence far greater than what’s available through your conscious mind. Disregarding it is the equivalent of cutting off your blood supply i.e. cutting off life’s messages in the context of truly reaching your potential in life.
In 1996 with a poor academic record in English, no background in writing and told I would not succeed by two award winning journalists ( not best selling authors), I decided to honour my intuition and commit to writing a Best Selling Book. Similar to many potential entrepreneurs it felt right to follow my gut but it didn’t make much sense and I didn’t have the know how. A few years later, I had sold approximately 15,000 copies.

Recently while reflecting on my time as a marketing consultant, I realised that very few projects whose market feasibility I had to check got the green light. I always found enough reasons why the business shouldn’t start. If I had applied the same level of analysis to the feasibility of the book, I wouldn’t have pursued this avenue either.

In the context of entrepreneurship, too often people disregard their gut in favour of the “practical, left brained approach” more often than not to the detriment of their project.

I now know that there isn’t a dream in the world that you and I couldn’t conjure up enough reasons why we shouldn’t proceed with it. Knowledge always gives you enough reasons not to act which is why I advise at all times to honour your gut in the knowledge that you will always end up in a place you describe and recognize as better than your starting point.

Oftentimes people don’t choose to go for gut because quite simply it doesn’t come with a pension plan. In the context of you reaching your potential and achieving meaning and significance, pain/discomfort will be part of the package. However this is nothing compared to the pleasure you will have at living and working in your own dream business.

Enjoy the trip.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Einstein

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful, than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

According to Global Entrepreneurial Monitor (GEM) fear of failure is the top reason given in Ireland and worldwide by aspiring entrepreneurs for not starting their own businesses.

NESTA - the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the UK’s largest early stage investor in innovative and creative businesses – found that almost three quarters of people who said they had what they believed was a good business idea were not acting on it because they were afraid of not succeeding.

Ironically on further examination it is obvious that all would-be entrepreneurs are being paralysed by something that doesn’t exist.
That’s right. Failure is a myth!

Entrepreneurial Development – Failure Brings you Closer to Success!

Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb famously said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

It took James Dyson, the engineer who reinvented the vacuum cleaner, four and a half years and 5,127 prototypes to refine his design.

“Each failure taught me so much,” he said. “Success teaches you nothing. Failures teach you everything. Making mistakes is the most important thing you can do.”

In an interview with Time Magazine, Larry Page, inventor of Google, said, “Invariably we try ten things that don’t quite work out in order to do one thing that is successful. And we learn a lot in doing the ten things that didn’t quite work.”

Thus every failure brings you a step closer to success and moves you further down the path of entrepreneurship.

Ironically by embracing this truism you mastered your first two major challenges in life – walking and talking.

Remember: As a child, ‘Never say die’, ‘Have no fear’, ‘Try and try again’, ‘Enjoy the moment’, were your working metaphors.

You fixed your eye on the goal, took your first step – wobbled a bit – steadied yourself. Then another step. Then landed on your backside!

What happens then? Did you give up? Did you say to yourself ‘I tried my best and I can’t do it. It hurts. I’m never doing that again!’? Did your ego kick in and start whispering ‘you’re making a fool of yourself. They’re all laughing at you! Better quit while you are ahead.’?

No indeed, as each one of us is born with an innate desire to reach our full potential, so you got up and tried again ultimately succeeding.

Model off your childlike strategies in the future and master the art of entrepreneurship.