Fear & Failure

Posted by
Petra Geiger. Owner & Founder Beehive Co-op

Usually I spend my evening hours working...clock strikes 8pm and the kids are in bed and I get to curl up with my computer (I know many of you do this too because I'm always trading e-mails with you guys until late into the night). But a few nights ago I was flipping through the tv channels finding nothing to watch when I happened on "the Big Idea: Donny Deutsch". Well Sarah Blakely was on, the owner of Spanx (you know of slimming undergarment fame), and since she's from Atlanta and has made a fortune with her product I thought I'd check her out.

She's definitely a go-getter, lot's of energy and personality, but what I really liked about her was her honesty about the whole processes. She's definitely not afraid to say what she thinks - she comes across as supremely confident. She said one thing that really articulated how I feel sometimes. She talked about fear. That fear you get when you are faced with something unknown and scary. Where your first instinct is to back away and say no "I can't do this". But it's the instinct to recognize the feeling and know that you MUST push forward and try something new, take a risk, make a decision that makes people successful. Growth will never happen if you stick to the safe route and let your fear of failure conquer you. It was good to know that I wasn't the only one who had those fearful moments. They're pretty healthy and I think you just need to trust your instinct and know when is the time to push through them and when is the time to listen. For me, more often than not, I have to push those feelings of fear aside and concentrate on how I'm going to do something not whether or not I'm going to do it!

Comments

[sue]

Your email strikes a chord with me as I've been thinking of opening something similar to your co-op for about 6 years now and am still not close to making it a reality. It is the fear that holds me back and I'm slowly working through it by gathering more and more information to help me be less scared.

I find you very inspiring and applaud you because you've found the strength to forge out on your own with your bags initially and now your co-op. What cojones that has taken!! You are clearly conquering your fears every day even though new ones present themselves every day I'm sure.

Anyhoo - just wanted to let you know you have inspired me and one day I will find my strength and fill my days with my passion instead of a day job that doesn't feed my soul. Thanks for your thoughts and blog :)

[Kristina]

I honestly believe that although we all experience this, as entrepreneurs when you, ahem, cliche dead ahead..."feel the fear and do it anyway" - the universe rewards your risk taking. I never had this experience in my corporate gigs. Weird. If you really believe in what you are doing and put it out there audaciously, it comes back to you. I've also found that to be really true in the realm of entrepreneurs helping each other - that really inspires me and keeps me going! (and you're one of those entrepreneurs I'm talking about!).