You must think I have lost my mind with the headline to my editorial ‘Being an entrepreneur is about learning to fail’.
9 out of over 10 business that starts; Fails! 1 manages to succeed. This is according to the wisdom of some self-claimed wisemen or women; whom I am pretty sure never in their life took the risk to be an entrepreneur
People normally focus on successes. I like to focus on failures.
People do not fail because an idea or intent or purpose is misplaced.
People do not fail because they lack funds.
People do not fail because they lack emotional or mental support.
To me people fail because they start to focus on their failures instead of turning their failures into successes.
If there is one thing that we young entrepreneurs must learn from toddlers while we embark on our baby steps in entrepreneurship, is that you cannot walk straight with falling a couple of times; sometimes even getting a hard knock on your butt or your head. That’s life.
But each time you fall, you are driven by this desire to achieve what everyone else around you is doing – walking. So you try, try and try, till you start to walk.
You know what, eventually most babies find the strength in their legs but most of all in their spirit to walk. There is this divine determination in a toddler to walk tall with the rest of the world.
Being an entrepreneur is about being a baby. It is about being driven by this immense passion to carve your own destiny, care your own future. The spirit of an entrepreneur is one of serving people, one of wanting to leave a legacy and one of setting a benchmark in product, service or innovation.
If you fail; so what! Remember you are not a failure. It means you need to relook at your idea and your business model. Try again. It is never easy to get up. But you must rise up. Try again. You must not let the spirit of entrepreneurship die in you.
It is my belief that someone who fails repeatedly eventually turn out to be a successful entrepreneur.
I like to be inspired by stories where a an entrepreneur has turned his idea and business from nothing to something and then everything.
But it is not only those stories that inspire me. I am inspired by that man on the road with a food cart make Ross Omelette or a lady with Vada Pav stall, or that cycle repair shop or that sofa maker, you never read about these entrepreneurs on newspapers or TV channels. But they are success too in their line of business, even though it is small.
‘Even a brick wants to be something’ is a dialogue I cherish the most from the Hollywood movie ‘Indecent Proposal’. It delivers such a powerful message.
You very rarely see the bricks in a beautiful building but if you look closely it is the brick that upholds the beauty of the building. Too many that brick would be just someone of ordinary existence or a failure but the truth is that it is not, it is not ordinary.
Young entrepreneurs must not worry about failures. Do not let a failure wear you down. Relook at your ideas, relook at the business model. Your positivity will turn your honest intent into a reality. You will succeed in your failure.
Go to take the risk! Be an entrepreneur!
