Fear is normal for an entrepreneur. If you never feel fear, it means you’re not failing, which means you’re not trying new things—and if you’re not trying new things, you’re not growing your business.
Entrepreneurs often oscillate between euphoria and fear. One doesn’t happen without the other. Fear and anxiety are the “morning after” effects of the excitement and hope that drive us to create new opportunities.
So, can you completely kill fear? Not really. Trying to eliminate fear is like trying to get rid of hope at the same time. (Show me a rich stoic….)
Instead, learn how to manage fear. Here are 4 strategies I’ve applied over the years to handle my own entrepreneurial fears:
1. Focus on Your Vision
It’s normal to feel fear when you lose a sale or client, or when controversy or litigation strikes. These moments can be painful and anxiety-inducing, often impeding your ability to serve your remaining clients or create new ones.
When you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself: “Will this matter in five years? Will it impact my long-term goals?”
If the answer is “no,” shake it off and keep going. Your business growth depends on staying focused on the bigger picture.
Our Summit Vision can help here by keeping your long-term goals in sharp focus. This tool ensures that every decision aligns with your overarching purpose and direction, making it easier to filter out short-term distractions.
2. Take Action
One of the best antidotes to fear and despondency is taking action. Doing something productive gives you a dopamine boost and a jolt of positive momentum that you can build on.
You might feel like licking your wounds, but action works wonders. Remember the fortune cookie wisdom: “For worry, work is better than whisky.”
I’ve had many mornings where I woke up at 3:30 a.m. in a sweat, but after diving into work, I felt a lot better by the time my family woke up.
3. Compartmentalize
Imagine walking into a sales presentation, and right before you start, you get a message from an angry client canceling an engagement. Can you ignore it, or will you let it drain your enthusiasm and energy?
Learning to compartmentalize problems is crucial. There are some issues you simply cannot fix immediately, no matter how much you worry.
Back in 2009, I hated managing my firm’s cash flow—I was late on bills and the pressure was enormous.
The only way out of that hole was to focus on making sales and delivering great service. So, I set aside two hours every Friday to manage payables, and the rest of the week was focused on growing the business.
4. Find the Courage to Cut
Sometimes, running from cash flow problems isn’t an option. When your business has overreached, or when a recession hits, you need to face the facts. Sometimes that means cutting costs, even when it hurts.
Trimming the fat is hard enough, but cutting into the flesh of your business—like letting go of valuable employees or assets—can feel like admitting defeat. It’s brutal.
In late 2008, during the financial crisis, I realized most of the deals my firm was working on wouldn’t close. Our cash flow was collapsing, and I had to let go of 50% of my team. It felt like failure, but the immediate result was a huge relief, and morale actually improved among the remaining team. We survived, and even thrived during the recession.
During uncertain times, the Vision & Strategy Map™ can provide clarity on what’s essential. By aligning immediate actions with your broader vision and strategic goals, you can avoid panic-driven decisions and maintain forward momentum.
Conclusion
Fear is unpleasant, but it serves as a flashing indicator that something needs to change. What that change should be isn’t always obvious and can take hours or days of pain to figure out.
Tools like Our Summit Vision and Vision & Strategy Map offer the clarity and direction to navigate through the storm, helping you channel fear into focused action.
