So What?

I had a great conversation with a woman the other day, a mom with three kids who is ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship now that her children are older and two are out of the house.  We talked about her idea for a business and she is doing all the right things. She is putting together a plan. The company she is creating will solve a problem and/or fill a need. She has investors so she has clearly communicated her business idea and pitched it to the right people. She is following her passion. She knows her ideal customer. Definitely, she is on the right track.

But she is scared……. scared she doesn’t know everything she needs to know. Scared it might fail. And this is a subject that comes up all the time in my conversations with entrepreneurs. She has a right to be scared. At least half of new businesses fail within the first year. But……….. here’s what I told her.

So what! So what that she is scared. Everybody is scared, or should be. That fear factor encourages us to proceed cautiously. I also told her that she has several things going for her. One, her idea is solid, in fact, it is quite brilliant and I don’t know why it hasn’t been done before. OR at rather, let me rephrase that statement, it hasn’t been done right before.

The second thing she has going for her is she is a mom. Now I could go on all day to extoll the virtues of being mom, but I reflected the picture of her life as a mom back at her. She was a mom with three kids whose lives she held in her hands, and at times it was hard, hard as hell actually. There were times when she had to wear all the hats, solve problems, move obstacles (mountains), multitask, stay calm, react quickly, figure things out, educate herself, budget her time, money, and friends, and keep going, no matter how hard and no matter how much or little she knew. She had to navigate the waters and she had to stay strong and eliminate what wasn’t working.

And a lot of times she failed, Failed at how she disciplined her child, failed at how she prepared a meal, failed at keeping it all together, but presumably she apologized, got up again and kept going and doing and succeeding. And last but not least, she was a fighter. She fought for her kids rights, she fought to ensure they were safe, and she fought because she believed in them and what they needed. And she would treat a business exactly the same way, which meant she was ready, she was able, and she was more than capable. And given that, she would most likely succeed. So in answer to her statement, I say, “So what! You got this covered!”

xo, jan