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Fear is the Entrepreneur's Best Ally and Worst Enemy

By Juan Carlos Castro - Briq Fund
Co-founder

STORY INLINE POST

By Juan Carlos Castro | Co-Founder - Mon, 01/04/2021 - 09:00

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Entrepreneurship involves taking action to change something that you think can be done better. This idea involves exploring paths that are unknown. If you are successful, you are going to find yourself in situations that will surely exceed your knowledge or capacity to assimilate. As if that weren't enough, it's usually a journey that you advertise to the world, so it can be very scary. However, the fear produced by the entrepreneurial activity is usually the best ally or the worst enemy for the entrepreneur.

Getting out of comfort zones is not easy. Most of us consciously or unconsciously look for them. Entrepreneurship does not give you options; it takes you by the hand and pulls you out. And it is right there, when you feel afraid, when you are least comfortable, that your brain is usually stimulated in such a way that ideas and creativity emerge. In my experience, some of the products or functionalities at briq.mx have arisen from complex situations, which threatened our existence and which took us to the limit. It was at that limit that we devised them. You have to know how to take advantage of those terrifying junctures and produce high-value ideas, and not only that, but to use the adrenaline to energize the company.

The most important and recurrent activity that an entrepreneur faces is decision-making. The position from which decisions are made has a great impact on the direction of your company. If the answer to fear is to protect yourself, it is very likely that the vision with which the decision is made will fall short. That can lead the company toward a path that is not the one intended when making that decision. Also, you are likely to waste time and money – two of the most valuable and scarce resources for an entrepreneur. I have also experienced this firsthand. Some of the most unsuccessful experiments we have had as a company were the result of seeking to shield all angles and eliminate all risk (instead of seeking to create something of value). It's funny, but at the time what we thought was protecting us ended up playing against us. This does not mean that you do not have to be cautious, intelligent and meticulous, on the contrary. However, you have to be aware of the position from which decisions are made.

This article deals with entrepreneurship from a business perspective. But the reality is that entrepreneurship covers many other areas. Entrepreneurship is a human activity. When you decide to start a family, when you take a new job and even when you move house … in all these cases, fear will be present, it is something inevitable and inherent to change. The best recommendation I could give you is to learn to live with it and take advantage of it.

 

Photo by:   Juan Carlos Castro

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