Is Shame Lurking Around The Corner?
How to maximise stress in your life? By becoming an entrepreneur? How about moving to another country and starting up there? That's what I did. I took a leap into the unknown and moved to the UK. Paradoxically, I am not suffering from stress, at least not yet. I am very excited and motivated - most of the time (the short black moments of despair do not count as they are very short).
Leaving behind a more or less guaranteed monthly salary is of course one of the challenging things in being an entrepreneur. At least inFinland there is however another factor that may be even scarier - that is losing face. Running a business is a risky thing. You may fail, you may lose all your money but most of all, you may look really stupid. Someone who steps out to test her own abilities is an easy target to malicious minds.
We had a chat in Twitter some time ago whether this shame prospect still applies in modern Finland. One entrepreneur said it definitely does - even if he is most successful and knows what he is doing, he thinks the shame lurks around the corner. I think he is right. Fear of being laughed at keeps us at bay in corporate cubicles.
Why is it then a shame to fail as an entrepreneur? Shouldn't you just think it was a lesson learnt if you go bankruptcy? I have a theory. Finland has a very agrarian history - still in the 1950's majority of the population got their earnings from agriculture. And farmers tended to own their land. If they failed, they lost the land (when paying back debts) - and could no longer be farmers. Thus they lost their place in their community. That would have been the end of the world.
Maybe we have inherited this concept from our ancestors. Failing in business means losing everything. But it doesn't! A business is just a business. Of course we invest a lot into it. But our identity should include other things, too. We have other roles, which keep our heads above the surface if the actual start-up fails. At least this is the way I keep myself calm during the short black moments of despair.
How do you feel about this?
Editor's note: Guest post by Riitta Nieminen-Sundell, a self-employed sociologist working with futures. She is a Finn residing in Surrey, UK.
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I did exactly the opposite. I sold up my small business back in the UK restoring classic cars, and moved to Finland.
It was a very difficult decision to make, after several years of building my Car restoring business, which in fact started out as a hobby for me, but with the cars I specialized in becoming so rare, I soon realized there was a Business Model, so set up business. This was after a career of working in the Telecommunications industry around the world with Nokia.
I have no regrets selling up in the UK, and moving to Finland. I'm now less stressed, and can now start to enjoy the most important areas of live, family.
Thank you, Riitta.
A few years there was a TV ad in the US with the best slogan I've ever seen: "It takes a real man to be a father!". For Innovation Finland to survive it should start acting according to a slogan "It takes a real Finn to be an entrepreneur!"
Yesterday I couched the groups #aaltoes #summerofstartups on sales & marketing and told them that they have to learn to fail. Because it is what will. They were not afraid of this - so luckily the spirit is there.
All things new come from outside one's comfort zone - the bigger, the riskier. In the sports industry getting there is called training, a process where you learn partly through errors; what should we call the process in the business world?
I started my first company back in 1988 and have failed many times since then - and will do so in the future too, because I strive for something new.
I am proud of failing, I would be ashamed of not trying.
Aape, looking forward to failing :) See also this blog entry: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1284604/welcome_failure.html?cat=35
Mickyfin, I like the combination of car restoring and telecom, sounds like you have followed your instincts, especially now when you spend more time with the family.
Entrepreneurs are not afraid of failing -- to win you need to be ready to give everything, which means that by default the risk of losing is high.
Somehow we still have wrong attitude towards failing -where else you can learn more when failing and do mistakes- I can't tell you better learning experience, normally people can learn about mistakes. Almost every cases you can always turn some steps back- and look what went wrong and most important-what I did right, because there is always something what you did right-always.
I looking for new attitude also from our Government that they could fix our law and circumstances more entrepreneur friendly specially in failing cases. I mean if you failing you should have a second change-Now is very difficult. Finland needs new entrepreneurs also in the future, that will be sure. Therefore we need to change our attitude towards failing.
It's the old paradox. In order to win, you have to be okay about failing. If you're afraid of failing, you're going to attract it. So to free yourself to succeed, one must go beyond that whole duality and focus on what you're creating. Otherwise the stress will eat you up.
Aape,
Very wise words (I am proud of failing, I would be ashamed of not trying.). As a self-employed ulkomalainen, I couldn't agree more. I think I'll make this my email signature for a while :)
Cheers,
Amit
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Now that a few weeks have passed, I have to say that failing-winning game is quite invigorating :) Every day I need to think what next. So far on the winning side, though.
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