A long flight and I finally get to see The Social Network, the recently released movie on the founding of Facebook. As an entrepreneur I find the execution of ideas into reality fascinating, hence my addiction to programmes such as Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice despite their being run through the inevitable anti-business mangle of the BBC (making anyone interested in business appear dodgy, unlikeable and/or criminal). No less so Hollywood, it seems, as The Social Network quickly descends into a near-farce of backstabbing perfidiousness and intrigue, whatever the historical reality.
Like most people, I watch movies developing either sympathy or antipathy towards the main characters, although I’m often attracted or repelled in the inverse to the director’s most obvious intentions. Yet this was a difficult one to call, as the scriptwriter’s (Aaron Sorkin’s) obvious intention of pointing out accredited founder Mark Zuckerberg’s character flaws was balanced by the lack of other characters deserving support.
The narrative focuses on Zuckerberg’s defence against two law suits aimed at recognizing the significant role played by others in the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg is portrayed as an disagreeable misanthropist whose lack of empathy for his fellow students borders on Asperger’s Syndrome (although an online debate on the subject concludes against this notion). His misanthropy – it seems – extended to shafting a group of New England aristos (Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra) who claimed the idea as their own and Zuckerberg as originally no more than their recruited programmer. It also extended to freezing out Paul Ceglia, the original funder of Zuckerberg’s venture, and apparently the only person on campus with a favourable view of our inventor prior to his success with Facebook.
My empathy was certainly not triggered by the plight of the aristos. As Zuckerberg said (at least in the movie), their ire was triggered by the fact this was the first time in their lives that something had not gone their way. Astonished by Zuckerberg’s chutzpah – a boy they seemed to consider an unattractive, unclubbable outsider – they used daddy’s attorney to plot retribution for the “stolen” idea.
Partly, my lack of empathy for the aristos comes from my former role as Metrocube CEO, where we witnessed many start-up companies in our London incubators and developed an insight into what entrepreneurial contributions counted, and what didn’t. One contribution that counted for very little was the idea. In fact, it counted for nothing – zilch – in our view because we saw that execution was everything. And if you lacked the skills to execute your idea – as the aristos appeared to – you were vulnerable to those that had such skills, as the aristos discovered. One of the reasons we believed this at Metrocube was because it was clear that, in any given set of circumstances, several if not many people were capable of having the same idea simultaneously.
In the case of Facebook (again going by the movie), it was various houses at Harvard College that had the original online “facebook” (yes, even apparently using that name) for undergraduates. So to make the leap into a cross campus Facebook, with added functionality for further personal details, was such a small leap of imagination that it hardly even deserves the credit of being an idea (not least because MySpace was well established at the time). From what I could see, it was simply a race to market and it was the aristos’ bad luck to “employ” (there was no sign of a contract) a programmer with entrepreneurial ambition.
Or was it such bad luck? I’m just going on the movie (and some fact-checking on Wiki) but the aristos won a substantial settlement ($65m according to the movie, $20m according to Wiki), which – in my view – they can put down to their fabulous luck in choosing Zuckerberg as their programmer. Anyone else and no enterprise would have gotten off the ground, giving them no one to sue for "their" brilliant idea (and I’d wager there are others who also claim the idea). Daddy’s attorney certainly earned his fee on that one (as stated, just an opinion based purely on the movie).
Yet my empathy did extend to Zuckerberg’s “only friend” (as he called himself during his lawsuit) and the original funder of the venture – roommate Paul Ceglia. While ideas are cheap (free even), risking cash at such an early stage deserves reward. And Facebook would have remained no more than an idea without Ceglia’s $1,000 – making his “three-F” stage investment (friends, family and fools) crucial.
So what of Zuckerburg himself? The misfit, the geek, the social outcast – this is a difficult character to empathise with, not least because he doesn’t seem to seek our empathy. In the movie, at least, he seeks revenge – against his girlfriend for dumping him, against all womankind (at least on campus) for finding him unattractive, against the college establishment, against the WASP jocks that guarded entry to the elite clubs and houses at Harvard.
In terms of social skills Zuckerburg appears to follow the Millwall FC mantra of “no one likes us, but we don’t care”. At least, he seems to accept his unpopularity as a price for his genius. Arrogance is the result, as well as an entrepreneurial clumsiness that most will see as typical of the billionaire mindset although, in most cases, leads to disaster and no eventual movie portrayal. Even for Zuckerburg, it resulted in lawsuits that – in the case of Ceglia at least – could and should have been avoided with a more synergistic approach.
One obvious question for this blog is whether Zuckerburg is a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure, as described in What’s Stopping You?)? I think not. Certainly his social awkwardness is a High-FF trait, although the key aspect of High-FF behaviour he lacks is avoidance. He jumps right in – elbowing others out of the way in the process. Convinced of his messianic mission, he remains focused on the end result and is happy to make small adjustments on the way (such as dropping “the” from the title). This makes Zuckerburg more a classic High-AM (those with high achievement motivation – the opposite to a High-FF).
Nor Ceglia, who was happy to back Zuckerburg with cash on more than one occasion prior to the website earning a dime. No, the real High-FFs in the story (at least as portrayed by the movie) were the three aristos who claimed the original idea, outsourced it to a “doer” – thus ceding control to the High-AM – and then complained bitterly that their idea had been stolen. Only their rich daddy and his attorney saved them from achieving nothing from “their idea” – like millions of High-FFs before them who have also had ideas and then failed to act.
Not all High-FFs, it seems, are deserving of empathy.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Famous quotes for overcoming fear of failure
There’s one box on the Facebook profile that’s always bothers me: favourite quotations. I never know what to put. Listing loads looks like I’m trying too hard but narrowing it down to one may make me look too intense – as if it’s a mantra for my every move.
Yet I do like quotations. They summarize great truths in a memorable phrase, making them far more influential than entire books written on similar subjects. If life comes down to a few moments (to quote Bud Fox in the original Wall Street), then – indeed – our beliefs come down to a few quotes, usually pithily summarized by famous or historical figures.
So what are mine? Given that I count myself as a recovering High-FF (someone overcoming fear of failure), here are four that I find myself quoting more than others.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt (former U.S. first lady). I like this because it states that we are responsible for our feelings – especially with regards to our self beliefs. We must take responsibility for our inner reactions, even to insults.
We are all insulted from time-to-time but it normally says far more about the insulter than the insulted – unless we let it. Of course, this is easier said than done. Insults, or even unintentional slights, can cut us to the core because, so often, we feel they contain a grain of truth. If our self beliefs are negative we are bound to treat insults as confirmations, while ignoring or mistrusting flattery. Yet Roosevelt is simply pointing out that it is our reaction that matters here, not the insult itself (which may have even been unintentional).
“Don't regret not doing something, regret doing it,” Terry Venables (former England football coach). Terry was an Essex lad with West End tastes, and this may sometimes have led him astray. But it more often led him towards achieving his goals. The key is he took action. Sure he made mistakes but his regrets were based on his actions, not his inactions.
I can certainly empathise with this. My first book, published in 2000, contains some passages that make me cringe with embarrassment every time I’m reminded of them. Indeed, my mother, who read a proof, warned me that I’d end up regretting the book if I allowed it to be published. She was right, of course. But the other voice in my head – the one saying that what I’d really regret is turning aside the chance to fulfil my ambition of becoming a published author – was more right.
Life often comes down to decisions between action and inaction: change versus the status quo. All Venables is saying is that the worst form of regret is the “if only” retrospective. Mistakes made are far better than opportunities lost – at least if we want to make progress in our life.
In the end, even my cringe at some of the content of my previous book soon turns to a smile. What was I thinking? I say to myself, and then inwardly chuckle – having learnt the lesson that I need to be aware that what I write today will matter tomorrow. If I’d listened to my mother, however, my frustration at the lost opportunity would have been unbearable.
“KBO (keep buggering on),” Winston Churchill (former UK PM). This became his motto during what his biographers termed the wilderness years of the 1930s. From the backbenches of the House of Commons he tried to warn the world of the dangers of Nazism while the war-weary democracies ignored him, even seeing him as a warmonger (a charge that returned after the war). Yet he also used it during the bleak years of the 1940s with Britain being bombed nightly by a seemingly-invincible enemy.
In both cases it captures the mood perfectly. Emboldened by his inner beliefs and convictions, the phrase allowed Churchill to keep going despite numerous setbacks and humiliations. After each knock Churchill would pick himself up, dust himself down, learn the lesson, mutter "KBO" and move on – no less convinced of the inalienable truth of his cause.
In fact Churchill coined many memorable quotations during his extraordinary life (although modern revisionists lacking Churchill’s originality of thought like to claim he stole some of them). How about this one to enrich his KBO theme: “If you are going through hell, keep going”. As with KBO, it recognises the struggle. The pain is acknowledged, as is the difficulty. Nonetheless, the only allowable response is to, indeed, keep going.
“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser,” Alan Hansen (former footballer and current TV football pundit). This is perhaps an unusual one to include because it smacks of the school “Jock” lording it over his weedier peers. The phrase is, indeed, laced with testosterone but that’s just one interpretation – and certainly the one I would have chosen in previous years. Now it tells me that I must have fight. That I cannot be a pacifist in my own endeavours.
Frustration is a key “action signal”, as "life-change" guru Anthony Robbins would say. If we feel like a loser – that life is unfair and has gone against us - that we are capable of more and better but that our luck or timing was out, then, in fact, those are good feelings because they can be converted into action. The worst response – at least for our progress – is to shrug and smile and console ourselves that the other guy was probably more deserving anyway. No he/she wasn’t. It was indeed unfair. We were cheated. The result was a travesty.
Convert that anger into energy, point that energy in the right direction, pull the trigger – and GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!
Yet I do like quotations. They summarize great truths in a memorable phrase, making them far more influential than entire books written on similar subjects. If life comes down to a few moments (to quote Bud Fox in the original Wall Street), then – indeed – our beliefs come down to a few quotes, usually pithily summarized by famous or historical figures.
So what are mine? Given that I count myself as a recovering High-FF (someone overcoming fear of failure), here are four that I find myself quoting more than others.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt (former U.S. first lady). I like this because it states that we are responsible for our feelings – especially with regards to our self beliefs. We must take responsibility for our inner reactions, even to insults.
We are all insulted from time-to-time but it normally says far more about the insulter than the insulted – unless we let it. Of course, this is easier said than done. Insults, or even unintentional slights, can cut us to the core because, so often, we feel they contain a grain of truth. If our self beliefs are negative we are bound to treat insults as confirmations, while ignoring or mistrusting flattery. Yet Roosevelt is simply pointing out that it is our reaction that matters here, not the insult itself (which may have even been unintentional).
“Don't regret not doing something, regret doing it,” Terry Venables (former England football coach). Terry was an Essex lad with West End tastes, and this may sometimes have led him astray. But it more often led him towards achieving his goals. The key is he took action. Sure he made mistakes but his regrets were based on his actions, not his inactions.
I can certainly empathise with this. My first book, published in 2000, contains some passages that make me cringe with embarrassment every time I’m reminded of them. Indeed, my mother, who read a proof, warned me that I’d end up regretting the book if I allowed it to be published. She was right, of course. But the other voice in my head – the one saying that what I’d really regret is turning aside the chance to fulfil my ambition of becoming a published author – was more right.
Life often comes down to decisions between action and inaction: change versus the status quo. All Venables is saying is that the worst form of regret is the “if only” retrospective. Mistakes made are far better than opportunities lost – at least if we want to make progress in our life.
In the end, even my cringe at some of the content of my previous book soon turns to a smile. What was I thinking? I say to myself, and then inwardly chuckle – having learnt the lesson that I need to be aware that what I write today will matter tomorrow. If I’d listened to my mother, however, my frustration at the lost opportunity would have been unbearable.
“KBO (keep buggering on),” Winston Churchill (former UK PM). This became his motto during what his biographers termed the wilderness years of the 1930s. From the backbenches of the House of Commons he tried to warn the world of the dangers of Nazism while the war-weary democracies ignored him, even seeing him as a warmonger (a charge that returned after the war). Yet he also used it during the bleak years of the 1940s with Britain being bombed nightly by a seemingly-invincible enemy.
In both cases it captures the mood perfectly. Emboldened by his inner beliefs and convictions, the phrase allowed Churchill to keep going despite numerous setbacks and humiliations. After each knock Churchill would pick himself up, dust himself down, learn the lesson, mutter "KBO" and move on – no less convinced of the inalienable truth of his cause.
In fact Churchill coined many memorable quotations during his extraordinary life (although modern revisionists lacking Churchill’s originality of thought like to claim he stole some of them). How about this one to enrich his KBO theme: “If you are going through hell, keep going”. As with KBO, it recognises the struggle. The pain is acknowledged, as is the difficulty. Nonetheless, the only allowable response is to, indeed, keep going.
“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser,” Alan Hansen (former footballer and current TV football pundit). This is perhaps an unusual one to include because it smacks of the school “Jock” lording it over his weedier peers. The phrase is, indeed, laced with testosterone but that’s just one interpretation – and certainly the one I would have chosen in previous years. Now it tells me that I must have fight. That I cannot be a pacifist in my own endeavours.
Frustration is a key “action signal”, as "life-change" guru Anthony Robbins would say. If we feel like a loser – that life is unfair and has gone against us - that we are capable of more and better but that our luck or timing was out, then, in fact, those are good feelings because they can be converted into action. The worst response – at least for our progress – is to shrug and smile and console ourselves that the other guy was probably more deserving anyway. No he/she wasn’t. It was indeed unfair. We were cheated. The result was a travesty.
Convert that anger into energy, point that energy in the right direction, pull the trigger – and GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Are you an entrepreneur? Don’t answer that question
Playing around with Facebook this morning and an advert flashes up with Richard Branson’s face as the icon. Do you have the personality of a “great” entrepreneur, it asks? Find out, take the test.
I declined to do so for several reasons. First and foremost, I was sending a message to a friend about a weekend rendezvous and by the time I’d completed the task the icon had disappeared. Yet I’d inwardly sighed anyway because I get fed up with the “mind of an entrepreneur” myth, not least because it’s pedalled everywhere and, for people with fear of failure, it can be extremely off-putting. From the stereo-type painted it is obvious those with high fear of failure do not possess an “entrepreneurial mind”, and this deters many of them from doing what would probably be the most liberating action of their entire life: setting up and running their own business.
Yet the stereo-type is also annoying because it isn’t true. High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure in my forthcoming book What’s Stopping You?) are perfectly suited to entrepreneurship, even if they fail to fit the image.
How come? Well, first, let’s look at the image. Here’s a description from British entrepreneurial guru Mike Southon in his well-known business start-up guide The Beermat Entrepreneur (written with Chris West in 2002):
“Entrepreneurs are confident. They are born optimists: they simply know they can do it….Entrepreneurs are also charismatic. They inspire people….they have optimism to spare which they radiate and instil into others around them…. Entrepreneurs are ambitious….Entrepreneurs are in a hurry….Entrepreneurs are also arrogant. They know they are good. At everything….Entrepreneurs are also manipulative….Entrepreneurs use people.”
This is a million miles from the attributes of the average High-FF. Yet virtually all start-up business books conjure this image of an entrepreneur as a swashbuckling risk taker: confident, cocky, manipulative, optimistic.
I disagree. I think this image describes the wrong person. Southon is a successful entrepreneur that has made millions. And he is describing himself. However, he is far from alone. Nearly all of the cashed-out big-name entrepreneurs write a book (or pay someone to do it for them) and they all state the same thing – to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be optimistic, ruthless and manipulative, just like me. Indeed, the fact Richard Branson was the image for the “entrepreneur’s icon” on Facebook is another giveaway. Entrepreneurship, it states, is for the giants and the wannabe giants.
Yet the vast majority of entrepreneurs are simply not like that.
Michael Gerber’s important book on why most small businesses fail called The E-Myth Revisited (2004) offers a better perspective. Referring to the “entrepreneurial myth”, Gerber states that people start businesses for many reasons but that most businesses are not started by visionary entrepreneurs trying to become the next Google or Microsoft. They are started by bookkeepers, barbers, plumbers, salespeople and secretaries who grew tired of working for somebody else.
“Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” says Gerber.
This definitely chimes with those suffering from high fear of failure. Frustration is a key driver for many High-FFs and that frustration is often directed at a boss or employer that appears to thwart our progress. Many High-FFs feel that their talents are ignored or there is prejudice against them, making running their own business a practical solution despite their genuine fears.
And any reading of Rachel Bridge’s column in the Sunday Times Business section confirms this view. Many of her interviews with British entrepreneurs from all walks of life have made it into several books, including How I Made It (2005). In the introduction she describes the typical entrepreneur, or rather she doesn’t as she states that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes – “they can be old and young, well educated or not, male or female, naturally confident or painfully shy”. She also states that they can be the type of person that “dreams up a dozen new business ideas a day or the sort who has only ever had one – which may not even be original”.
“What makes the whole idea of becoming a successful entrepreneur so very exciting,” she concludes, “is that there are no rules.”
Another strong book on this subject is Never Bet the Farm (2006) by US entrepreneurs Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr. They also de-myth the heroic entrepreneur stating that start-up business people are just ordinary people with fears and faults like everyone else. A key proposition for them is that successful entrepreneurs are “risk managers, not risk takers” exploding the myth of the swashbuckling entrepreneur.
Yet even this is too neutral for me. Just stating that High-FFs can become entrepreneurs isn’t good enough. In my view those with high fear of failure should become entrepreneurs – not least because they are perfectly suited for it. Here are six reasons why I think High-FFs have strong attributes for entrepreneurship.
1) High-FFs are cautious. Ignore the myth about risk taking – for every Richard Branson there are a 1,000 that gambled and lost. The best entrepreneurs are more interested in building a sustainable business that means they can pursue their love or their skills for their own bottom line, rather than someone else’s. And that takes careful planning and small steps. Staking everything on a throw of the dice is not what High-FFs do, which means they are far more likely to nurture a sustainable enterprise.
2) High-FFs are “good” with money. The quickest route for enterprise failure is through too much debt and/or over-expansion (perhaps by signing an office lease that was too ambitious or spending too much on a fit-out or other "luxuries"). Yet many High-FFs have financial phobia, which means they hate spending money. So far this has been seen as a negative. Start your own business, however, and bootstrapping is an imperative for sustainability.
3) High-FFs are not “wing it” merchant. Most High-FFs will have a thorough understanding that nothing comes for free. Blood, sweat and tears are required. High-FFs are likely to realise this from the off, meaning they will put in the required effort. High-FFs are mentally prepared for the challenges ahead.
4) High-FFs are facing the right way. As stated the vast majority of businesses are started by people wanting to work for themselves, perhaps because they feel frustrated working for someone else. This, rather than an overwhelming desire to make millions, is what drives the vast majority of sustainable businesses.
5) High-FFs are capable of strong people skills. This may take time as many High-FFs feel they lack people skills. Yet what they lack is confidence and self-esteem, which erodes their ability to deal well with others. Remove those frustrations through the development and pursuit of strong goals and the High-FF can become an excellent people-person because they have empathy for the other person – as long as they can remember what life was like on the other side of the fence. Those hustling, arrogant, high-achievers, meanwhile, go through life trampling on people - in many cases without even realising it. And this will eventually catch up with them: probably the first time their business hits a snag.
6) High-FFs understand fear. As Gerber states, starting a business is a terrifying experience. Yet terror is the natural state of the High-FF, so we are well prepared. More confident people may experience terror for the first time once the safety net of employment is removed, making them less able to cope.
Of course there are also downsides for entrepreneurs with a high fear of failure, of which the most acute must be the tendency to set inappropriate – avoidance-based – goals (as written on many previous blogs and a major theme throughout What’s Stopping You?). Motivation-focused experiments on children in the 1960s found that those revealing a higher-than-normal fear of (especially public) failure had no problem attempting tasks viewed as almost impossible while avoiding achievable but challenging tasks. This was because the cost of public failure remained low. And there was even the potential upside of being judged a “trier” at such a difficult level.
In terms of career choice this often means High-FFs pursue dream-fulfilment careers such as pop stardom or TV fame because the consequences of failure remain limited. They are extremely unlikely to succeed and – they calculate – will be judged kindly for trying. Meanwhile they reject "sensible" (but challenging) career choices due to their fear of public humiliation.
And those following the Richard Branson path towards fortune and fame – with fame being the primary objective – should perhaps re-examine their entrepreneurial goals in order to ensure their ambitions are not part of an elaborate avoidance-based strategy.
Those wanting to join Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may be best-off taking the Facebook test to see if they do have “what it takes”. Those, meanwhile, that want to start their own business because they are fed up with their current employment and feel that liberating their time, skills and endeavours from an unappreciative boss, should ignore all the noise about the personality of an entrepreneur and, instead, plan a strong future of sustainable self-employment.
I declined to do so for several reasons. First and foremost, I was sending a message to a friend about a weekend rendezvous and by the time I’d completed the task the icon had disappeared. Yet I’d inwardly sighed anyway because I get fed up with the “mind of an entrepreneur” myth, not least because it’s pedalled everywhere and, for people with fear of failure, it can be extremely off-putting. From the stereo-type painted it is obvious those with high fear of failure do not possess an “entrepreneurial mind”, and this deters many of them from doing what would probably be the most liberating action of their entire life: setting up and running their own business.
Yet the stereo-type is also annoying because it isn’t true. High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure in my forthcoming book What’s Stopping You?) are perfectly suited to entrepreneurship, even if they fail to fit the image.
How come? Well, first, let’s look at the image. Here’s a description from British entrepreneurial guru Mike Southon in his well-known business start-up guide The Beermat Entrepreneur (written with Chris West in 2002):
“Entrepreneurs are confident. They are born optimists: they simply know they can do it….Entrepreneurs are also charismatic. They inspire people….they have optimism to spare which they radiate and instil into others around them…. Entrepreneurs are ambitious….Entrepreneurs are in a hurry….Entrepreneurs are also arrogant. They know they are good. At everything….Entrepreneurs are also manipulative….Entrepreneurs use people.”
This is a million miles from the attributes of the average High-FF. Yet virtually all start-up business books conjure this image of an entrepreneur as a swashbuckling risk taker: confident, cocky, manipulative, optimistic.
I disagree. I think this image describes the wrong person. Southon is a successful entrepreneur that has made millions. And he is describing himself. However, he is far from alone. Nearly all of the cashed-out big-name entrepreneurs write a book (or pay someone to do it for them) and they all state the same thing – to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be optimistic, ruthless and manipulative, just like me. Indeed, the fact Richard Branson was the image for the “entrepreneur’s icon” on Facebook is another giveaway. Entrepreneurship, it states, is for the giants and the wannabe giants.
Yet the vast majority of entrepreneurs are simply not like that.
Michael Gerber’s important book on why most small businesses fail called The E-Myth Revisited (2004) offers a better perspective. Referring to the “entrepreneurial myth”, Gerber states that people start businesses for many reasons but that most businesses are not started by visionary entrepreneurs trying to become the next Google or Microsoft. They are started by bookkeepers, barbers, plumbers, salespeople and secretaries who grew tired of working for somebody else.
“Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” says Gerber.
This definitely chimes with those suffering from high fear of failure. Frustration is a key driver for many High-FFs and that frustration is often directed at a boss or employer that appears to thwart our progress. Many High-FFs feel that their talents are ignored or there is prejudice against them, making running their own business a practical solution despite their genuine fears.
And any reading of Rachel Bridge’s column in the Sunday Times Business section confirms this view. Many of her interviews with British entrepreneurs from all walks of life have made it into several books, including How I Made It (2005). In the introduction she describes the typical entrepreneur, or rather she doesn’t as she states that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes – “they can be old and young, well educated or not, male or female, naturally confident or painfully shy”. She also states that they can be the type of person that “dreams up a dozen new business ideas a day or the sort who has only ever had one – which may not even be original”.
“What makes the whole idea of becoming a successful entrepreneur so very exciting,” she concludes, “is that there are no rules.”
Another strong book on this subject is Never Bet the Farm (2006) by US entrepreneurs Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr. They also de-myth the heroic entrepreneur stating that start-up business people are just ordinary people with fears and faults like everyone else. A key proposition for them is that successful entrepreneurs are “risk managers, not risk takers” exploding the myth of the swashbuckling entrepreneur.
Yet even this is too neutral for me. Just stating that High-FFs can become entrepreneurs isn’t good enough. In my view those with high fear of failure should become entrepreneurs – not least because they are perfectly suited for it. Here are six reasons why I think High-FFs have strong attributes for entrepreneurship.
1) High-FFs are cautious. Ignore the myth about risk taking – for every Richard Branson there are a 1,000 that gambled and lost. The best entrepreneurs are more interested in building a sustainable business that means they can pursue their love or their skills for their own bottom line, rather than someone else’s. And that takes careful planning and small steps. Staking everything on a throw of the dice is not what High-FFs do, which means they are far more likely to nurture a sustainable enterprise.
2) High-FFs are “good” with money. The quickest route for enterprise failure is through too much debt and/or over-expansion (perhaps by signing an office lease that was too ambitious or spending too much on a fit-out or other "luxuries"). Yet many High-FFs have financial phobia, which means they hate spending money. So far this has been seen as a negative. Start your own business, however, and bootstrapping is an imperative for sustainability.
3) High-FFs are not “wing it” merchant. Most High-FFs will have a thorough understanding that nothing comes for free. Blood, sweat and tears are required. High-FFs are likely to realise this from the off, meaning they will put in the required effort. High-FFs are mentally prepared for the challenges ahead.
4) High-FFs are facing the right way. As stated the vast majority of businesses are started by people wanting to work for themselves, perhaps because they feel frustrated working for someone else. This, rather than an overwhelming desire to make millions, is what drives the vast majority of sustainable businesses.
5) High-FFs are capable of strong people skills. This may take time as many High-FFs feel they lack people skills. Yet what they lack is confidence and self-esteem, which erodes their ability to deal well with others. Remove those frustrations through the development and pursuit of strong goals and the High-FF can become an excellent people-person because they have empathy for the other person – as long as they can remember what life was like on the other side of the fence. Those hustling, arrogant, high-achievers, meanwhile, go through life trampling on people - in many cases without even realising it. And this will eventually catch up with them: probably the first time their business hits a snag.
6) High-FFs understand fear. As Gerber states, starting a business is a terrifying experience. Yet terror is the natural state of the High-FF, so we are well prepared. More confident people may experience terror for the first time once the safety net of employment is removed, making them less able to cope.
Of course there are also downsides for entrepreneurs with a high fear of failure, of which the most acute must be the tendency to set inappropriate – avoidance-based – goals (as written on many previous blogs and a major theme throughout What’s Stopping You?). Motivation-focused experiments on children in the 1960s found that those revealing a higher-than-normal fear of (especially public) failure had no problem attempting tasks viewed as almost impossible while avoiding achievable but challenging tasks. This was because the cost of public failure remained low. And there was even the potential upside of being judged a “trier” at such a difficult level.
In terms of career choice this often means High-FFs pursue dream-fulfilment careers such as pop stardom or TV fame because the consequences of failure remain limited. They are extremely unlikely to succeed and – they calculate – will be judged kindly for trying. Meanwhile they reject "sensible" (but challenging) career choices due to their fear of public humiliation.
And those following the Richard Branson path towards fortune and fame – with fame being the primary objective – should perhaps re-examine their entrepreneurial goals in order to ensure their ambitions are not part of an elaborate avoidance-based strategy.
Those wanting to join Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may be best-off taking the Facebook test to see if they do have “what it takes”. Those, meanwhile, that want to start their own business because they are fed up with their current employment and feel that liberating their time, skills and endeavours from an unappreciative boss, should ignore all the noise about the personality of an entrepreneur and, instead, plan a strong future of sustainable self-employment.
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