The reaction to the fear of failure separates an entrepreneur from a non-entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is a skill set to earn profit for taking risks. Risk arises out of fear for failures. Hence, profit is a reward to entrepreneurs for fighting against failures. I have always believed in the fact that you learn more from failure than from success.
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| Anurag Batra |
If you study the accomplishments of most successful entrepreneurs across the globe or in India, you will realize that most successful entrepreneurs have tasted failures before they tasted success. Even if we go back in history, we have many names like Thomas A Edison, who discovered 1,500 ways NOT to make an electric light bulb, Abraham Lincoln, who lost several state elections before being elected president!
Once I was attending a conference in New York, I told my friend, “Failure breeds success. Others might argue that failure breeds more failure, a sense of loss, or a loser mentality. I welcome the inquiry and the chance to respond because I believe there is more to learn from our failures than from our successes.” In my opinion, there is a lesson to learn in each failure we experience.
How a person reacts to a fear of failure is what I believe separates an entrepreneur from a “non-entrepreneur” (I think I just made that word up). A “non-entrepreneur” typically fears failure and avoids it at all costs. An entrepreneur embraces it and knows it is part of growing and being successful.
Am I talking of lower level of achievements as equivalent of failures? No, I am talking of real disappointments and grand plans going away as failures. I am sure you are also thinking that am I suggesting that one needs to fail or engineer failure before one succeeds. No, not necessarily.
As you know an entrepreneur’s risk appetite can get him/her to take on initiatives more than his capabilities or resources. He or she can take decisions that turn into losses. There is an old saying “Nothing succeeds like success.” I would like to modify it to “Nothing succeeds like failure” or still better, “If failure is around, success can’t be far behind.”
What is more important is what we learn from failure and how we deal with it. Although nobody wants to be a failure, it can be said that there’s no better education for an entrepreneur than failure. I believe what an entrepreneur has to do to be truly successful is shake off past mistakes, just as a good shooter in basketball must not let a missed shot affect his/her next shot. Break down those past mistakes and squeeze as much knowledge as possible from those mistakes.
Now it is important to note that an entrepreneur should not get used to failure. Mistakes do cost money and too many of them will put someone out of business. What I’m saying is that an entrepreneur’s plan must include steps to avoid failures, but the plan must also account for failures as well.
By that same token, just as an entrepreneur must learn from failures, their employees also learn from failures. My philosophy as an entrepreneur has always been to provide employees a safe environment to make mistakes and put them in situations where the mistakes they make can have limited negative impact on the company. As the employee gains confidence and proves himself/herself, a manager’s job is to place them in an environment that is slightly less “safe” and increasingly more challenging.
Anurag Batra is real life, first generation entrepreneur who is Much Below Average (MBA) from the prestigious Management Development Institute, MDI. When he is not busy writing such columns, he can be reached at anuragbatrayo@gmail.com. Anurag is the co founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com.
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written by prada belts, December 21, 2010
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