Did you know that fear makes you stupid? Fear is perhaps the most powerful stupid drug that the human body has ever felt.  When we are afraid our reasoning and thinking is disabled by our body and instead we are thinking with our brainstem, basically reacting to reflexes instead of acting.

You know who lives with a lot of fear everyday? Business owners. I know, I’ve seen it in their eyes and heard it in their voices.  They are afraid of all that is out of their control.  Customers and clients, employees and partners, the government regulators and tax collectors, lenders, investors; there are so many forces that bear down on a business owner it’s easily overwhelming.

If these fears aren’t enough, there is one fear that almost every business owner I’ve ever talked to has that is bigger than all the rest.  We all feel like frauds, like we were lucky to get this far.  Yes, we worked hard, yes we are smart, but really… Someone’s going to find out that I don’t have a license for this, that I’m not trained for this, that I can’t do this and they are going to take it all away.

It’s true.  Almost every business owner I’ve ever talked too is secretly afraid that they are doing it all wrong, that they are screwing everything up.  That they are making big mistakes, that they will never recover from.

What makes it worse is that the people around the business owner most likely look up to them for their risk taking ability, for their courage and strength at taking on new challenges.  No one sees the fear that’s inside. So it stays there, inside.

But it is there and it’s making you stupid. What does that worry do for you? Does it motivate you, or hold you back?  Does it make you too cautious, or too reckless?

You have worked hard, you are smart enough, and experienced enough.  How do I know? No one is that lucky.  If you have gotten this far, you have what it takes.  I know that you could have made some better decisions along the way, and you could have done more at times.  But think about your employees, do you think that they make mistakes sometimes?  How much does that bother them?  Are they losing sleep over those mistakes? So they are making mistakes and sleeping well and you are making mistakes and not sleeping?

What’s the difference between their mistakes and yours?  When they don’t know something, or make a mistake, they can get help.  Their boss (or you) might bail them out, or show them a different way to do it.  But if you own your business, who do you ask?

Find someone who can help you out.  Don’t go it alone. We are pack animals, find a tribe who can point you in the right direction. Who is excited when you succeed, and disappointed when you fail?  Who knows all the risks you have taken?

Because there is one thing that fear will never get you, in fact that fear will keep you from ever achieving.

Peace.

During January many of us spend time setting goals and making plans. Often these are based on our aspirations, who we want to become. But there’s another side to this, sometimes we need to set goals based on who we don’t want to become.

Matt Linderman on the SvN Blog had a great take on this, start with an enemy, what you don’t want to become. Is there a firm that you just hate, can’t stand, don’t respect? What is it that makes your blood boil? How can you design your service offering to be totally the opposite from that? Better yet, how can you design your service offering to appeal to a large market segment that also hates that thing?

Maybe it’s worth an hour or so to thing about what you don’t want out of 2010, who you don’t want to become, and things that you shouldn’t be spending your time on. This is tricky, you don’t want to trigger a fear response, “If I don’t accomplish this thing then I’m going to be doomed to be that person I hate.” But we can use these things we are driven away from to set a direction or position, then set a positive goal of what you want to become.

For example, I don’t want to grow my business just for the sake of getting bigger. I want us to impact more businesses and create workplaces where people love to come to work. I hate the idea of growth for the sake of getting bigger, but I do want us to work with more companies and have more impact. So I might set a positive goal of finding better ways to measure the impact we’re having on our client companies. This would both insure that we are making positive change and prevent us from taking on work where we can’t have that kind of impact.

What do you hate enough to get out of your comfort zone and accomplish this year?

I love to ski. But, much of skiing is not even skiing; it’s waiting in line and riding the lift. So, you learn to find enjoyment in those down times. When I’m riding the chair lift, I spend my time watching other skiers on the slope below. My eyes are usually drawn to the skiers who blast through the hill and catch an edge, leaving their hat, poles and skis all over the slope like a yard sale. Those are the ones I want to watch! Likewise, if I haven’t had at least one wipeout by the end of a day of skiing … well, I haven’t been skiing! No mistakes means I’ve been playing it too conservatively and not really getting the most out of my performance.

The same thing is true in business. Sometimes you make mistakes – big ones, little ones and everything in between. If you never make a mistake, then you are playing too conservatively, staying within a comfort zone. Sooner or later, you have to push out of your comfort zone.

Business owners make mistakes. Not only is this human but it’s an acceptable and expected part of running a business. At the risk of losing a few of you here, I’m going to cite a line out of The Magic School Bus: “…take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” This quote may as well be the theme song of every business owner out there. Your business can’t grow if you don’t take chances, and doing so may mean you make a mistake on occasion. The business owner who doesn’t make a single mistake is probably not leading a growing business.

What great mistakes have you made recent? Did it lead you to fail forward?

Seth Godin’s blog post today rang true for me. As a cyclist I know that everyone goes fast downhill, but uphill is when you separate yourself from the field.

In the last few weeks I have been riding the North Branch Trail, which has two overpasses that have short, but steep uphill sections. Twice in the last few weeks I have had riders pass me on the uphill sections of those overpasses. Now I’m a little competitive and I don’t like to get passed at all; but I was particularly upset about getting passed on the uphill. I knew that it is easy to keep pace on the flat, but the uphill is what tests your mettle. So getting passed on the uphill really frosted me.

At the same time it’s the work you do on the flats that makes you strong enough to compete on the uphills. If you don’t work hard on the flat sections, you don’t build the muscle and stamina that you need to be fast going uphill.

There’s one other thing about the uphill, I find myself anticipating the coasting on the other side, and so I don’t always go hard all the way up the hill, I might start to slow down that last 10% (and give up any gains I might have made).

Where are you “coasting” in your life right now? How can you prepare for the uphill to come?

Where are you on the uphill? How is it that you are going to improve your game to get better NOW?

Go ahead and read Seth’s Blog Post: Winning on the uphills. He might have a few ideas for you.

---

Brad Farris is a small business advisor with Anchor Advisors, Ltd. in Chicago, Il. Since 2001 Anchor Advisors has been helping creative professional firms to grow, by helping them clarify their purpose, get the most from their people, keep their eye on key performance measures, and implement consistent processes.