A few weeks ago, we wrote about fear of failure and got a lot of requests to provide solutions to specific founder fears.

As always, at your service.

Read for how to solve for founder fears 👇️ 

Solving for Specific Founder Fears

I used to think that only early-stage founders experience fear of failure.

I was wrong.

I spoke to many founders who are generating millions, and they still feel fear of failure. 

Here’s a LinkedIn poll if you need more proof.

So what can help?

What do you fear?

For founders, fear of failure commonly means fear of one or more of the following:

1. Decreased self-worth & self-esteem 

2. Uncertainty 

3. “What will other people think” / shame / embarrassment

4. Disappointing people (family, friends, employees) 

Fear Specific Solutions

3 Mindset Shifts to Battle Fear of Decreased Self-Worth 

Mindset Shift 1: Your worth as a person is not tied to the performance of your business. 

Let me repeat that.

Your worth as a person is not tied to the performance of your business.

This is a tough one for many entrepreneurs to embrace, so we’ll do a separate issue on this topic in the future.

There are so many factors that determine the outcome of your business (market size, market conditions, customer segment, competition, financing etc.).

You are just one part of a massive equation. 

You would have to be almighty to believe that you alone are responsible for your business success and to tie your self-worth to it.

Exercise: Ask your friends why they value you. I promise that your business will be the last thing on the list (if on it at all).

Mindset Shift 2: Failing is not bad, it is essential.

Entrepreneurship is all about testing hypotheses.

An inevitable part of testing is getting negative results.

If someone doesn’t want to buy your product, it doesn’t make you a worthless person, it just means that the value proposition of your product does not resonate with the given customer at the given price.

Rethink your value prop. Find a different target customer. Change the price, not your self-worth.

Mindset Shift 3: Every failure makes you smarter.  

After failing, you know how not to do something.

You probably heard the famous Thomas Edison quote:

Getting something wrong is a learning opportunity.

It is not something to fear.

When you pick up a book or take a new course, do you fear that you’ll know more? Probably not.

Take the same approach towards failure.

Success is often reached through a series of progressive failures that lead to new information, skills, and strategies.  

3 Exercises to Reduce Fear of Uncertainty

Entrepreneurship is one big uncertain journey.

Below are 3 exercises to help you get more comfortable with uncertainty.

Exercise 1: What are the absolute worst things that can happen?

Truly, think of the absolute worst cases.

Then think about how you’ll solve for them. 

Below are the 3 most common worst case scenarios I hear from founders:

Yes, these are not ideal.

But, they are also not as big and scary as fear of failure can make them out to be.

Having an approximate plan for what you would do in the worst case scenario also helps reduce the fear. 

Exercise 2: Think about a time you failed a year or more ago

How did you feel in the moment?
Probably quite 💩 . 

How do you feel about it now?
You probably completely forgot about it or it feels quite minor and unimportant.

The same thing will happen with whatever failure you’re fearing now.

p.s. Were you unable to think of a time you failed? Then what are you doing fearing failure now?

Exercise 3:  What can you control right now? 

Typically you can control your:

• strategy

• resources (daily time & effort and $ investment)

• timeline

Focus on those and do your absolute best for a set period of time.

There is no point stressing about things out of your control.

Hopefully it works.

If it doesn’t, you’ll know you tried your hardest and that it wasn’t your lack of work that led to failure but rather external factors. 

Have a plan B - what will you do if it doesn’t work?
Try a different value prop / different customer acquisition strategy / go for a different problem space / get a job etc.

Similarly to Exercise 1 above, knowing what you could do next helps put your mind at ease.

How are you feeling after these exercise?

Respond to this email and let us know!

Feel free to share your current fears or anything that helped you with fears in the past. Your info is always confidential.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Solutions for fearing “What will other people think” and disappointing people.

Warmly,

Founders Club