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November 2nd, 2014

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Why did you quit your corporate job? How did you start in the first place? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to fail? 

These are just some of the questions I get asked when I talk to people about entrepreneurship.

One question that particularly fascinates me is the one concerning the fear of failure. It’s the one I get asked most frequently, and the one I want to address.

Rock star entrepreneurs
Over the years, Silicon Valley has paved the way forward for entrepreneurship around the globe. Successful entrepreneurs are often hailed as rock stars. Successes such as Apple, Google and Facebook have inspired people to such an extent that many are considering starting their own companies.

But something seems to be stopping people from taking the initial step, and that is the fear of not being good enough. The fear of failing immobilises people and restrains them from moving forward.

Repetition, repetition …
Going through life without ever failing is impossible. Experiencing occasional bumps on the road is part of the journey, and the sooner we choose to accept setbacks and realise that we are going to make mistakes, the sooner we will start seeing them as fantastic learning opportunities. 

Zig Ziglar once said: “Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”

Simply put, you learn by repeating. You will always be able to do something better the next time you try it, and in the process you develop yourself.

Fail to learn
You shouldn’t set out to fail, but you should remain resilient and focus on bouncing back. The goal isn’t to glorify failures, but to nurture the ability to adjust and learn from them.

Failures only stop us if we let them, and the great thing is that we decide how to look at them. The sooner we choose to destigmatise failures, the sooner we will realise that valuable insights most often come after a failure. Choosing to accept and learn from them is crucial to succeeding in life.