are you afraid of failure?

most of us dont venture out to become entrepreneurs because we are afraid of failure. being afraid has two implications :- one is the social stigma and the other is that once we fail as an entrepreneur, we become 'unemployable'

social stigma is a fact, one particularly hates the sympathetic looks, the seemingly empathising noises, not just with the entrepreneur but with his family members as well. this is always hard to take. especially after being in a good position in a good well-known organization. like everything else, one has to learn to live with it, develop what we call a 'rhino hide'.

the 'unemployabilty' factor is rubbish. it is a figment of imagination. years ago i was hiring a profit centre head for one of our biz units in the middle east and i had pretty much zeroed in on a gentlemen who had quit an MNC to become an entrepreneur and after struggling to get his company off the ground for nearly three years, had wound it up and was looking for a job.

my boss was aghast that i had short-listed a failed entrepreneur for such a key position and i said to him that my reasoning for short-listing him was that as an entrepreneur you learn in six months what as an employee you would take decades to learn. and that condensation in the gestation period of learning was going to be invaluable for us and therefore we should hire him. my faith in him, needless to say was vindicated.

believe you me, more and more people are beginning to see value in this truism that a failed entrepreneur makes for a highly successful employee!!

so stop worrying about failure, go out there, pick your idea and get the biz rolling.