Have you ever heard persons say that not everyone is cut out for Business? I will never be successful. There are too many red tapes. I do not know anyone who would be interested in investing in my business. I think the idea needs more research. I do not have the financial capital to start. What if I fail?
These are the many self-blockers that we use to describe what we do and to perceive what may ultimately grow into a success. Most of the negative voices come not from others, but from our own minds. So how can we move past the negative views that we ourselves have towards business ownership? Most of what we think may arise from our own experiences. Otherwise, they stem from what we perceive of other people’s failures. But using someone else’s benchmark is not always a good idea. Not everyone will start out in business the same. Not every business journey is the same. Moreover, more importantly, success or failure is relative to the person’s expectations; how they perceive the results of some action taken; and how they use what they have learned from their experience.
The truth is that everyone has been a business owner at some point in their lives. It depends on what you think of ‘business’ to be. If you see it as something unattainable, something undeserving or something too grand – then you will find it difficult to realize.
Imagine a young child who receives monies for their birthday and any special celebration. That child saves every penny, whether received from the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Grandparents, Parents or relatives. The child takes out their money at every opportunity, counts it and express the interest of obtaining more. This was the case with my nephew. Whenever his mom or grandma wanted any loose change or smaller money to borrow, he would go for his ‘Wallet’. One day I said to his mom, “Teach him from now about borrowing, lending and interest rates.” So said so done – so my nephew always wanted to lend his money, because he saw the return on his investment. Now, he has become a businessperson or a business-child at best.
Consider another child who loves baking cookies with mom or dad or grandparents. They love how the cookies taste and has developed the art of Baking. What do they do with that hobby, add the sale of cookies to their summer lemonade stand, of course!
So what you want to learn from early is how to perceive things, how to accept kinks as things to be worked out and how to stick to something if you find value in it. Not everyone will believe in your vision – Relax! Not everyone is meant to understand and support something that you have burning on the inside of your heart to do. Sometimes, we have to process the idea and ensure that we ourselves understand and have bought into it as well.
Contrary to what is more often touted, though business requires money and hard work – one of the most important thing is first the confidence that you have been given an idea to implement that is worth something to you and to persons whom the implementation of the idea will target. Self-belief is first. What else would I need? A good support system, even if it is one person who does not understand your idea, but who believes in you and will support you as an individual. You will need to go in with a mind-set that the idea you are implementing is not a finished idea – it will need working out first. So there may be starts and stops; there will be points of frustration and there will be times when self-doubt tries to take over. Never believe that your idea is perfect – knowing that you are working it out will cause you to see failures as experiments and discoveries. You will then not be so hard on yourself, and no outside voice will cause you to feel that you are a failure.
Now that you know that you are not a failure – nothing that comes from you will ever be a failure. Many things that we consume today took some time to be perfected, to be accepted by the market and to be seen useful for consumption. Take WD-40 for instance. The name comes from the fact that the formula represents the 40th attempt to create a degreaser and rust protection solvent. Can you imagine if the lab had given up after 39 tries?
Do not get a melt-down if you do not get it right. Many of us are familiar with the cardiac Pacemaker. The Pacemakers used to be huge – the size of televisions. Then Wilson Greatbach, the American Engineer and pioneering inventor made a mistake that revolutionized medicine. When building a heart rhythm recording device, he pulled out the wrong sized resistor and plugged it into the circuit. When it was installed he realized it sounded like a human heartbeat. With some work, he miniaturized the device to two cubic inches. The result was an implantable pacemaker, which has since saved thousands of lives.
Let us look at another successful and popular product. Today, Nintendo is known as the gaming company that launched an era, but it certainly didn’t start out as a success. Nintendo’s first offering, the Famicom console, had to be recalled after only a few months. Atari’s failure in the mid-1980’s left the American video game market a mess, and the Nintendo NES barely sold when it was introduced in 1985. By the end of 1986, however, two little characters named Mario and Luigi had changed the history of American gaming forever.
Does that make you feel better? Yes, it does! We can speak of many other great and familiar persons including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. Many persons are also artisans – actors, comedians, models, writers. Nowadays, we have Youtubers, Instagrammers and Podcasters.
Continue to dream your dream. What you dream may be unheard of at first – but who knows? In each of us, there is creativity waiting to be unleashed. Consider a hen trying to hatch her eggs. Some eggs require take a longer time to hatch than others. But ultimately they do. Take your time if you must, turn over the idea, and try different methods (environments) for making it come alive. Change the egg if you must! But never, ever give up!
Let Gibraltar Bay help you take your vision from dream to reality. With its Team highly experienced in Strategic Planning, Business Process Analysis, Research and Development, Company and Intellectual Property registration – we can help you overcome the fear of failure and on the path to success. Contact us today: Email us at info@gibraltarbayglobal.com
Some information for this Article was retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2015/01/16/8-successful-products-that-only-exist-because-of-failure/?sh=6c04ca2e1c8c