The Blog For Entrepreneurs

This struck a note with me and this post was prompted by an email question I got. I was asked by Robert “David, everyone, including you, talks about getting out there and putting yourself up in lights if you want to be a success online. I have made some mistakes offline and worry that whatever I do will be tainted by those mistakes coming back to haunt me. How can I approach this?”

Do it anyway

My answer to Robert is the same I would give to anybody; do it anyway. I have made some mistakes that I am not proud of, things that I have done in business that haven’t turned out well for me or others. I have done my best to make up for these errors and spent a number of years with my head down worrying about the impact of these mistakes. This, in itself, was a mistake. Your past mistakes are not the sum total of your character, nor do they condemn you to a future running away from those mistakes.

Being an entrepreneur is not all about skipping down the street never making a mistake. If you show me an entrepreneur who says he/she has not made a mistake in business where someone got hurt financially or reputation-wise because of their actions, I will show you a liar. It is a fact of life that if you decided to set out in business it will not always go according to plan.

Would I do things differently if I could? Yes I would, but it is too late now. Should I curl up into a ball and do nothing with the rest of my life? Absolutely not and neither should you. We all make mistakes.

Will everyone accept this philosophy? No. People who have lost out by your actions will probably not let you forget it, and want everyone else to know about it. ‘Journalists’ will always want to sensationalise everything if you have any measure of success, so you can’t escape that either.

What you have to decide is can you take the heat when it comes? Because it will. If so you might as well be upfront about it now and have done with it.

People will criticise you whatever you do

I will tell you now I have been accused (by the Investors Chronicle no less) of being all sorts of bad. The article they published is not actually factual and what they don’t tell (as no ‘journalist’ ever does) is where they got the story from. An ex business partner, who was later investigated for a massive fraud, basically made some stuff up and sent it to the magazine. They didn’t bother to call or fact check, it was published and I believe it is on the web somewhere now (12 years later!!).

There are other related things that are talked about on the web with input from competitors, foes and people who just had nothing better to do. At first it made me mad, I called a lawyer he said “$100,000 and I will get it taken down, but it will be back up on a Chinese server next week”. Then I got upset when my wife read it and took it as the truth, then, eventually, I just let it go. I realised that whatever you do as an entrepreneur, you are going to get flack for it. Success or failure of a project brings different kinds of detractors, but you will always get them.

Robert, this may be a long winded way of answering your question, but I wanted to get the point across that we, as entrepreneurs, live in a world of risks, a world most people cannot, and do not, inhabit. Because of that, when we make mistakes the people who can’t do what we do use our ‘failure’ as an example of why they shouldn’t do it, and they tell everybody else and point the finger because they don’t want anybody else taking risks either.. why.. because if they succeed that would make those detractors feel small.

I read a great quote on the web “Beware a vested interest masquerading as moral indignation”. In other words, the loudest criticism you will hear will be from someone who stands to gain from your downfall. If you bear this is mind you can breeze through the inevitable crap that will be thrown your way.

I know I have.

Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear