I saw this tweet from Krish Nair (@krisnair): "What would you do if you weren't afraid". I had the first impulse to reply what I would do. Then held myself back and thought about it. It was a simple question requiring deeper thought. While thinking up on this question, my mind turned to "fear". Fear can creep in from any direction and at any stage. Fear is something which always holds us back from walking in the dark to starting up something new. Doing anything out of the normal requires a lot of courage. And believe me it is only the first time. Here are four tools that help me get over any fear I often feel:
1. Ivan Sutherland's Technology and Courage
I have always found the essay named: "Technology and Courage" by Ivan Sutherland a great read whenever self doubt creeps in. This is one of the rare essays based on a talk he gave some years ago.
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One of the lines I always cherish is this: "If you don't fail regularly you are not trying hard enough things." He also goes on to dissect why is it that we fear failure in his simple style: The trouble, of course, is that it is emotionally much harder to restart after a failure because the risks seem clearer. This may be why the energy and enthusiasm of youth are so important in research and in new businesses. Ivan Sutherland's paper is a must read for every one facing the real world.
2. A maxim to live by
Another catch-phrase I sometimes hark back to is: "When Least Is Best". This is the title of a book by Paul J Nahin about mathematicians working hard to deduce the maximum and minimum values of functions. In the preface, Nahin quotes Sir Isaac Newton: "When a quantity is least or greatest that it can be, at that moment it neither flows backwards nor forwards."
Actually, Least is Best should be the life-line of every entrepreneur. It is the state of equilibrium which helps him maximize profits and minimize costs.
3. Guarding the idea
While thinking about fear I always think "paranoia" of entrepreneurs with respect to sharing thoughts, ideas and concepts with others. It is pretty natural for them to hold on to their ideas close to their chest until they build a prototype and test it in the market.
Build the prototype fast and share with the world freely. This way you will know early enough in the product lifecycle if it is an idea worthy of your precious time and resources.
4. Build your own tools
Entrepreneurs have to develop their own set of tools to finally building the end product. The tools come first. The product next. The tools allow us to repeat a process, throw things out and try again. I have always admired those who insist on building small tools before even prototyping their product. It helps them to think through their product. And more than anything else, it reduces dependencies. As corollary, if you have to run for specialist help for your product's core, you may want to think about bringing that specialist onboard. Living by these four tenets should help us overcome our fears. So in trying to sort out @krisnair's question, I ended up bringing up some of my deepest beliefs which have stood me in good stead in the past.
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