The Entrepreneur -- Living with the Fear of Failure and the Agony of Success

 

At one time or another virtually everyone entertains visions of becoming an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurism is seen as the last frontier of the American Dream, the yellow-brick road to freedom and riches. But more importantly, entrepreneurism offers the potential to control your own destiny.

For most, the dream of becoming an entrepreneur remains just that for one reason – the fear of failure. And rightly so. The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that 50 percent of new businesses fail in the first two years and 95 percent fail within five years.

But despite these odds, thousands of individuals overcome their fear (or ignorance) of failure and take the leap into entrepreneurism. Those who (for whatever reason) beat the odds and build a successful company, are able reap all the psychic and financial rewards that comes with becoming a successful entrepreneur. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story.

Achieving success as an entrepreneur is actually the easy part.  

What many successful entrepreneurs fail to recognize is that there is a risk even more painful than the initial risk of failure. Achieving success and then losing it is much worse than failing as a neophyte entrepreneur.

It may take a yeoman’s effort to achieve success as an entrepreneur, but that’s nothing compared to how difficult it is to sustain that success.  

You see, achieving entrepreneurial success always makes obsolete the very behavior that made it possible. Success creates new realities and its own set of different risks. This phenomenon is called the “agony of success.”

It's a fact that more people rise from failure than survive success, because it’s more difficult to survive success. Life conditions us to cope with failure, but true success as an entrepreneur is a rare commodity, so individuals have less experience dealing with it. As a result, many end up losing their hard-earned success because, suffering from the “agony of success,” they become intimidated by the pressure that comes with success – and that’s the challenge to sustain success over time.

There are two mindsets that will help the successful entrepreneur defeat the agony of success: 1. Recognize you begin to lose when you begin to be afraid to take the risks you took to achieve success. 2. You will continue your success when you are never content with the success achieved to date.

The only realistic option for an entrepreneur’s victory over the agony of success is a constant, concentrated and passionate quest for more success.

Summary

Anyone seeking the life and rewards as an entrepreneur must not only confront the fear of early failure, but also be prepared to confront and thwart an even more painful risk and that is losing success by becoming prey to the "agony of success."

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Bob MacDonald -- Founder of LifeUSA, author of "Beat the System -- Building an Entrepreneurial Culture in a Bureaucratic World"

bobmac5201@gmail.com

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