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Failing In Business, Only To Succeed Second Time
Round
A key fact about business
and entrepreneurialism generally is that failure is extremely
likely in your first venture. Only 1 in 5 new people entering
business for the first time are likely to make a profit.
It often takes a failure to
get a person really turned on, knowledgeable and determined to
succeed the second time round. The lessons learnt from the prior
mistakes, come in really useful in the next business venture.
Many high profile business
and entrepreneurialism success stories stem from some form of
failure or another - whether that's in a previous business or in
the personal life of the entrepreneur concerned.
Gerald Ratner was thrown
out of the company he managed, after a few ill chosen words,
managed to get back up and ended up launching two successful
businesses. Walt Disney was fired because he could not draw and
Henry Ford failed in his first automobile venture; the Detroit
Automobile Company.
Success in business
involves taking risks & failing in business opens our eyes to
the true, harsh realities of business life. Whether our business
is financed by our life savings or we're staking our house,
these risks are real and all too often, confidence / arrogance
reigns supreme and we avoid walking away at an early stage of
failure.
However by achieving
failure at some stage in our lives, preferably in our first
venture, we're able to learn from our mistakes and manage risk
more appropriately in the future. It is almost like having an
additional instinct that helps us avoid repeat circumstances in
the next round of business ventures.
In some circles, it's said
that to be a truly successful you must have faced bankruptcy at
least once in your career. Those who start and always succeed
cannot possibly have the same depth of character of those that
have taken the risks and felt the heat at some stage or another.
For some, it's this risk
that makes the process of starting a business worthwhile and
enjoyable, and those that aren't prepared to stake some or all
of their life savings might just be in the wrong career path.
Risk and failure, generate
foresight in future dealings to a degree that simply cannot be
achieved by learning or simple common sense alone. It gives us
an improved gut feeling of the particular risks posed by any new
situation, and allows us to interpret more effectively the
threats they may pose to our business, and to our personal
assets.
The work environment is
seldom as risky as entrepreneurialism and going it alone. Even
when redundancy looms, the risks associated with your own
business going under in the start-up years is even greater, yet
so too are the potential rewards. As an aspiring business
person, it's up to you to decide whether or not you're prepared
to take that gamble and to move out of the 9 to 5 comfort zone.
There's no more effective
tutor than harsh experience and we learn much more from our
failures than we do from our successes.
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