If experience is still the best teacher, why are we afraid to make mistakes, preferring instead, to learn from the errors of others? Some events in the new year have provided me with a number of interactive engagement opportunities with young entrepreneurs, outside the lecture halls, with a lot of learning points. We can actually find knowledge anywhere, provided we are looking out for it. I have had occasion to interact with business people, young and old, especially those looking to be independent and self-employed; what I may call budding or first-time entrepreneurs.
Currently, I am having to chair a team of judges to select young entrepreneurs to be awarded some level of financing, as seed capital after a competitive engagement – a great privilege and opportunity to learn from people committing much energy to the sector. Evidently, the year promises to be quite active as we engage more and more with these energetic people driven primarily by their determination to be self-employed and to write their own paycheques.
One of the issues that keeps popping up in these interactive engagements with young entrepreneurs is the fear of the unknown. This feeling of fear cuts across and does not distinguish between the willing and unwilling entrepreneurs among them. Of course, the entrepreneurial space in Nigeria consists of two kinds of players: those who personally, and without any prompting, probably after dumping a lucrative employment, elected to go into private business. The other group is made up of the unwilling or accidental entrepreneurs, who were forced into the space by unavoidable circumstances, like unemployment and such. They may not show it or even express fear in any way.
However, below the surface of the bold and bullish youth, about to launch into the risky deep of the Nigerian business environment, is the fear of the unknown. Many would-be entrepreneurs have been held back by the fear of what could lie ahead. They may display considerable courage, energy and determination but the benign fear of what could happen if they make mistakes is ever-present. And that is what we want to address today.
Fear is an emotional reaction, which occurs when we are faced with anything we consider to be a source of danger or could bring harm to us. The problem with fear is that it creates a mental block that alters the conduct of the individual. The best way to deal with fear, however, is to confront it. This is more so in the case of entrepreneurs. It is impossible to predict how any event will turn out until we take the bold step of engaging with it. To confront our fears, we need to be properly equipped against the forces generating the fear. Those who teach or have speaking engagements would tell you that the biggest source of stage freight is perceived inadequacy of the speaker; a feeling that there is someone in the audience who is better qualified or schooled in the subject of discussion than the speaker is a killer. For as long as a speaker has the confidence that he is good in the subject of his speech, and probably better than everyone else in the audience, stage freight dies a natural death. Stage freight is a symptom of fear. Once we are able to attack the source of fear, it fizzles out or at worst, becomes an ordinary feeling of uncertainty, which everyone experiences.
Entrepreneurs should not be afraid of the unknown but instead, boldly confront it. Some of us have the wrong idea that we can go through this life and learn only from other peoples’ experiences. Truly, our prayer is not to learn the hard way, and so we try to see how we can mitigate our pain by avoiding the mistakes of others. However, it is impossible to grow a successful enterprise only on the experiences of others. However, every serious businessman must make his own mistakes and learn from them. There is no way you can make omelettes without breaking eggs. So, go out there, break the eggs and let the frying begin!
Richard Branson, the British billionaire; the only person on earth that lost his virginity and regained it – a biological impossibility – built an empire by taking risks and doing so fearlessly, starting with his Students’ Magazine, when he was only sixteen. Branson who described himself as an Adventure Capitalist, was not unaware of the consequences of conflict with tax authorities when he did the wholesale record-selling business that landed him in trouble with the Inland Revenue Service. He must have read about people going to jail because of tax evasion, but took his chances moving records across the English Channel and back to Virgin Stores for sale, for which he paid dearly. He also was not unaware of the unwritten business rule not to work with one’s friends – keep business strictly business. He filled his business with his friends and they kept falling out, with serious implications for the business.
Again, not insuring an aircraft engine cost him close to a million pounds when on its inaugural flight, birds flew into the uninsured engine and Virgin Atlantic Airways almost became history. Did he stop confronting risks and thereby his fears? Not in the least. Even when the push came to shove, Branson only “lost his virginity” – a uniquely Branson way of describing the fact that he had to sell his Virgin Music to save Virgin Atlantic Airways. This loss was rewarded with a whopping $1billion – money he described as being “beyond his wildest dreams”.
Branson’s autobiography, “Losing my Virginity”, which Bill Gates describes as a “terrific read” is not a treatise in brilliance. It’s not a book on strategy; it’s a reading in adventure, courage and fearlessness. It is indeed, an essay in triumphs and failures, laced with a determination to try the unthinkable. Nothing actually was unthinkable, and no opportunity was too much to pursue. His story shows that the first weapon an entrepreneur needs is the courage to think big and take calculated risks. Of course, this implies setting very high goals that sometimes appear too ambitious or unattainable. An entrepreneur must, therefore, be unabashed of failure but prepared to learn from it. To this, must be added the capacity to try what everyone has concluded is impossible – uncharted paths hold the treasure and not the well-trodden path. Above all, an entrepreneur must top up these criteria with a good dose of an ever-present “can-do spirit”.
Naturally, virginity once lost can never be regained, unless one is a Richard Branson. This is evidenced by the fact that twenty years after “losing his virginity”, by selling Virgin Music to save Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson found his virginity intact, having birthed scores of other great business in diverse fields. Be a Branson.
