Going Pro: Conquering Uncertainty

Because of some complications, I know the exact date of conception of my child. Knowing that isn’t exceptional-- most couples can guess-- it’s knowing on the day itself that life has begun.  People don’t tell you how poor the odds are in those first few days. First few weeks. First few months.  It starts below 15% likelihood of survival.  As the cells multiply those odds ever so slowly grow.  One’s heart is bent around the possible child from the first hour-- pinned to hope as embryos show promise, stall, die, grow in fits and spurts.  It is ridiculously unreliable, our reproductive system.  There were times I wondered how anyone was born. 

By the end of the first trimester your odds are looking pretty good (though frankly, still terrifyingly uncertain).  I had a sensation similar to stepping on a broken escalator.  You know intellectually that it’s not moving, but instinctively your foot falters, anticipating the familiar motion below.  And even as I climb the stairs of my own volition, my feet are not quite steady.  There’s an ever so slight sense of vertigo... the anticipation of movement below my feet.  That’s the first trimester.

But you hope.  And hate that hope just a little, for fear of it all falling apart.  There’s a correlation here, to starting ones own company.  The ridiculous, uncontrollable odds.  The vertigo. The anxiety and fear of failure.  My mantra has become a simple cliché:   more dreams have been destroyed by fear than by failure. 

"More dreams have been destroyed

by fear,

than by failure"

So go out and do it, fear be damned.  People say life is short.  That doesn’t motivate me.  Life is long motivates me.  You’ll live with your mistakes, your fears, your missed opportunities for a long, long time.  So if you’ve made a mistake, fix it.  If you’re afraid of something, push it aside.  If the opportunity presents itself, grab it.  Reasonably.  Strategically.  Passionately.

Next time: case studies in successful super niches.