I hesitate blogging on this topic, because I believe I am one of the extremes in this case….I have fallen in love with starting and making new ideas and new projects. This is a great article – Are You Afraid of Good Ideas? which spawned the idea for this blog. He titles the article towards people who are AFRAID TO START……so when I started reading it, I figured it would just talk about those corporate employees who never take their dreams and ideas to life…..
BUT, he puts a different spin on it, and it scares me a bit because I feel I somewhat can be categorized under one who loves starting ideas and is addicted to it. Here is an excerpt from his analysis:
Fear on the left, fear on the right
Some of us hesitate when we should be starting instead. We hold back, promise to do more research, wait for a better moment, seek out a kinder audience.
This habit is incredibly common. It eats up our genius and destroys our ability to make the contribution we’re quite capable of making. Call it hypogo–trapped into not enough starting.
Surprisingly, the flip side is also true.
Some people deal with the fear and hide out by doing something else. They overstart, constantly dreaming up the next big thing, bigger than big. They might start a zeppelin transit company on Monday, and then drop it for a Stirling engine patent application on Wednesday, and perhaps, if that doesn’t take off in just a day or two, aim for a business focused on home delivery of notary services by the end of the week.
Fitzgerald nailed it when he described Jay Gatsby’s attitude: “What would be the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” It’s easy to fall so in love with the idea of starting that we never actually start.
Life is hard right? Either we are too scared to start something, or too scared to finish what we have started?
TOO SCARED OF FAILURE
I will be first to admit…yes, one reason it is hard for me to commit to 1 single startup idea is the fear of failure.
Do stock investors buy only 1 stock with all their money? NO. They diversify. I do understand its hard to run a few businesses at the same time….but I have to feel entrepreneurs need to do something to keep themselves safe.
I am fully invested in my businesses. I know so many entrepreneurs who take out loans, every cent they have in the bank, and put it into 1 single business….and then they are so WEAK when it is having financial problems.
I will not name names, but even at this very moment I am talking to friends in that exact situation…..they dedicated everything to 1 single project…..and then they got into a bind.
How is that smart? I cannot understand this.
Sure, I have to admit, I am afraid to put 100% of my time, money, and life into 1 thing….because that is the same as gambling on the the stock market in penny stocks, right?
Comments
Ya but how many entrepreneurs do we know that have gotten really successful by doing several things at once? (I’m sure they’re are some) Of course their are examples of failure for those that choose to focus on a single endeavor – just as their are examples of success. There’s no magic formula but I’m more or less sure that the majority of folks who make it do so by investing themselves completely in one endeavor at a time – after testing the waters a bit of course.
We all need to mind our bias – more often that not we see what we want to see – pick out the examples that reinforce the viewpoint or perspective we want to be right for whatever reason. We can construct ,with our subjective selection, any world/reality our mind can envision. You know that!
That book sounds like a good read 🙂
Lots o love
the problem is….and i just said this in a facebook comment on the article…..is that we are taught in school and in business to diversify…..buy stocks in different sectors, mutual funds, etc etc
but then as a small biz owner we have to bet everything we own….and if it fails get a job or sleep on flooors eating crap till,,,,,i dont know. i have seen tons of these lost souls in china and other parts of asia
to be a slave again….that is what scares me
Hey Mike,
You definitely are like a geek pyromaniac, igniting new ideas/projects all the time.
I want to throw another point in here, is that if you have people working under you who can take these ideas and do the legwork under your direction, there is more chance of them taking off than say you trying to devote your limited time across different projects and spreading too thin.
Though I work “for myself”, I still consider myself to be a “worker” for all of my clients. At the end of the day, the properties are all theirs, I just provide a service with my team. Part of the the reason for that is likely due to me also bring one of those “non-finishers” of own projects and being hesitant/scared to put it all on the line for my own projects.
Not having any capital to start my own projects may also play a part in it, and this is where I enjoy working for clients with enough $ to fund either their own project ideas with my input, or to develop one of my concepts as their own.
I’m usually happier to work this way, as I have a trust with my clients and know the project is more likely to succeed with me having someone to answer to / produce deliverables to…
I guess, at the end of the day – do you want these projects to succeed, or is it more important for you to be the complete owner of these projects? Having clients/investors own them and you direct them may work better if its the financial risk of failure which holds you back the most?
More resources, not just $$, but good staff will definitely help out in a lot of both your and my cases I guess 😛
thanks Leon,
yea….for me personally i had too many rods in the fire on an unstable foundation……so it has been invaluable lesson learned , and the sooner we learn it the better…i read about steve jobs, he made a lot of mistakes earlier on, and that he learned from it and grew is key.
staff……people……team…….yes i think that wins over money for sure…..for example in china foreigners rushing in cannot just use money to hire best, must be more reasons……
just picked this up this morning and is awesome:
http://www.amazon.com/Conquer-Chaos-Successful-Business-Without/dp/0470599324
nice, can i borrow it when you’re done? adding to my reading list
Mike,This is a very inspring article. I got sth I can use in my life. Hope everythings goes well for u. Bless.
Cathy Shaw
Hey Cathy thanks so much for reading and commenting. Makes me smile. Are u still in shenzhen ?
But yes the struggle is beautiful and we cannot lose sight