Being
an entrepreneur is not an easy journey; being a woman, a mother, and over-emotional
entrepreneur is even harder.
Men
or Women – You’ll Never Know Until You Try
Being
an entrepreneur, woman or man, is hard because it is an unfamiliar, long and
bumpy road on which, no matter how smart, talented, experienced and
professional you are, success is unpredictable. Even with your best
preparations, there are and will always be factors completely out of your
control. In his highly recommended Ted Talk, entrepreneur Bill Gross tries
to figure out from his years of experience with start-ups the five key elements
which make some succeed and some fail. You will be surprised to learn which of
the five—idea, team and execution, business model, timing, and funding— he
considers stands out as the key factor. Planning alone, however good the idea,
the business model and the team, will never make it happen. You’ve got to get
the wagon rolling to see how far you can get.
Call it Faith, Luck or Destiny – Give Up
the Things that are Out of Your Control
In his book Outliers: The Story of
Success, Malcolm Gladwell shows systematically that there are many more
variables involved in an individual's success than society cares to admit and that
we should disregard the notion that everything that happens to a person is up
to them alone. A person is born into so many circumstances—family, culture,
connections and overall environment, for example— that can make or break the
search for success.
Being
a Woman Makes It All the Harder – Join the Quest for Change
According
to the statistics, of the 2014 Fortune 500 only 24 (4.8%) were led by
women, and though this is a major advance on the previous years (12 in 2011),
it is still far from adequate representation of a sector which comprises half
of the population. Only 13% of venture
capital deals went to women-led businesses in the first half of 2013,
and a 2014 Babson College Report found that less than 3% of venture capital
funded companies had a female CEO. Bearing in mind that these numbers represent
the situation in the United States, the leading nation of freedom and equal
rights, this is a clear indicator of the parameters of the ceiling globally.
Seeing
this impediment to women’s progress as a mission makes you part of something
bigger than you and can create a sense of vocation that will give you the
strength to progress. Being part of a just and justifiable battle that you strongly
believe in will touch the core of your existence. It is a goal worth fighting for not only for ourselves but also for
other women who are unable to stand up for their rights and for our daughters
and the coming generations, understanding
that change will not come from the occasional but rather from many examples of women who make it.
Women's Inclinations – Make Them Your Strength
The
question of what it is about women's inclinations that holds them back from being
center stage in the world of entrepreneurship has been much discussed in recent
articles. Here you can find a few suggestions of reasons for this. While one
of the major obstacles reported by innovators in general is fear of failure, this
is the top concern for women who launch startups. Here is how I personally
dealt with this issue, but I now realize that nothing prepares you to deal with
failure better than failure itself. "You need to have massive failure to
have massive success," says Delia Passi, CEO of WomenCertified, home of
the Women Choice Award. "You may need 100 'no's' to get one 'yes,' but
that one 'yes' will make you more successful tomorrow than you were
today."
Be
prepared for action, be prepared to fail, but most importantly, do it without
trying to be someone you are not. Adopting stereotypically male attitudes, for
instance, will simply inhibit us from boosting our confidence, as elaborated in the post here. Our action should focus on maintaining and embracing our
female predispositions as discussed in the Reaching Fulfillment in the 21stCentury post, as well as in the article here that includes
11 reasons why women entrepreneurs will crack the glass and lead the way for
women in other sectors to shatter their ceilings.
The
Bottom Line – Just Do It!
It
is not that we need to literally stop thinking; it is more about reducing our
tendency to overthink and make real action a larger and stronger part of our day-to-day.
Take action instead of being paralyzed by fear, over planning, and looking for safety
nets, foolproof answers, fallback plans, and the nebulous unknown.
It
has a lot to do with MOVEMENT and the ability to MOVE FORWARD, just like the easygoing
movement of fringe shared in the first post of this week and the magic
that happens when you make the first step and just start running. It’s the
same with accomplishing your dreams; just do it, and surprisingly – or not – it
may even somehow happen.
I
found the following advice in a post on Medium in which life and leadership
coach Lindsay Jean Thomson asked some of her favorite women in business what they
wish they had known sooner when they were just starting out or making their career
transition.
"Trust. Have faith. Know that just like in life, everything happens for a reason in the business world too. Try and look at it all as an adventure and a learning experience. Keep only good people around you. Ask for help. Trust your intuition. Never give up. And just shut up and do it, because no one else is going to do it for you.” — Rachelle Tratt, The Neshama Project
You can choose to comment as a guest.