A key fact about business and entrepreneurialism generally is that failure is extremely likely in your first venture. Only 1 in 5 new people entering business for the first time are likely to make a profit.
It often takes a failure to get a person really turned on, knowledgeable and determined to succeed the second time round. The lessons learnt from the prior mistakes, come in really useful in the next business venture.
Many high profile business and entrepreneurialism success stories stem from some form of failure or another whether that s in a previous business or in the personal life of the entrepreneur concerned.
Gerald Ratner was thrown out of the company he managed, after a few ill chosen words, managed to get back up and ended up launching two successful businesses. Walt Disney was fired because he could not draw and Henry Ford failed in his first automobile venture; the Detroit Automobile Company.
Success in business involves taking risks & failing in business opens our eyes to the true, harsh realities of business life. Whether our business is financed by our life savings or we re staking our house, these risks are real and all too often, confidence / arrogance reigns supreme and we avoid walking away at an early stage of failure.
However by achieving failure at some stage in our lives, preferably in our first venture, we re able to learn from our mistakes and manage risk more appropriately in the future. It is almost like having an additional instinct that helps us avoid repeat circumstances in the next round of business ventures.
In some circles, it s said that to be a truly successful you must have faced bankruptcy at least once in your career. Those who start and always succeed cannot possibly have the same depth of character of those that have taken the risks and felt the heat at some stage or another.
For some, it s this risk that makes the process of starting a business worthwhile and enjoyable, and those that aren t prepared to stake some or all of their life savings might just be in the wrong career path.
Risk and failure, generate foresight in future dealings to a degree that simply cannot be achieved by learning or simple common sense alone. It gives us an improved gut feeling of the particular risks posed by any new situation, and allows us to interpret more effectively the threats they may pose to our business, and to our personal assets.
The work environment is seldom as risky as entrepreneurialism and going it alone. Even when redundancy looms, the risks associated with your own business going under in the start up years is even greater, yet so too are the potential rewards. As an aspiring business person, it s up to you to decide whether or not you re prepared to take that gamble and to move out of the 9 to 5 comfort zone.
There s no more effective tutor than harsh experience and we learn much more from our failures than we do from our successes.
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