Love it or hate it, it certainly brings back memories of my military training in the SADF – South African Defence Force.
It was tough, damn tough, so I feel for those going through the process, but that’s not what this article is about. Instead it’s the question The Dragon asked me whilst we were watching it:
“Jolly” she said, “what are you afraid of?”
(Yup, she and my lovely daughters are the only ones who get to call me “happy”)
I responded without much hesitation – “Failure”
All my life it’s been the one thing that terrifies me, and yet half an hour later while taking a shower I thought about my reply in more depth.
It’s true I fear failure and yet every single day I suffer 10’s, if not 100’s, of failures.
Resilience to letting failure beat you is what defines a true entrepreneur.
It’s the challenges deriving from the failures that make it all so exciting. It’s solving the problems that arise as a result of the failures in my business that is the truly invigorating part of what I love.
Failure is what defines us and drives us to celebrate success. If it was failure that we were afraid of we would not be running our businesses since there are definitely more failures than successes.
Nope, it’s fair to say that if I truly was afraid of failure, I would not be running my business.
Think about it: if you were to make a list of all your failures every day, they would far outweigh the successes.
In fact, they outweigh the successes by such a huge margin that it would be fair to say that you could become suicidal if you worried about all of them. If like me, you too say that it’s failure that you fear the most, I implore you to analyse the statement: drill down into what really worries you and, in the words of one of my mentors, what keeps you up at night?
If it’s superficial stuff that you can’t do anything about, then stop worrying about things you can do nothing about. If it’s more meaningful stuff like relationships, then sort it out. It can be done.
Hell, I left South Africa because I didn’t think the continent was big enough for my Dad and me, yet we made up in his later years. So, these things are solvable.
If it’s money related, then analyse what needs to be done to sort it out.
OK, I know it sounds easy and it never is in real life, but if it’s not life threatening then just make a plan and action that plan.
Most importantly don’t count the failures, there are far too many of them. I see every failure as one step closer to a huge success; they are merely steppingstones that few will have the resilience to follow on.
In fact, I find the challenge of failure invigorating; if it was easy, I would be bored and would not enjoy what I do.
It’s the challenges deriving from the failures that make it all so exciting. It’s solving the problems that arise as a result of the failures in my business that is the truly invigorating part of what I love.
So, in analysing it, my greatest fear is not being able to solve the problems that are so complex that I would be forced out of the house that I live in.
And even while I say that I laugh to myself, because until I met The Dragon I lived like a nomad: working and entertaining, busking on the streets around this world. So, my greatest fear then is seeing those that I love being homeless, and boy I would really have to cock it up badly for that to happen.
