26 Entrepreneurship Fears to Conquer Before 2026

Welcome to Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for joining in. What is happening in the world of entrepreneurship today? I'm walking through 26 real fears that keep ambitious professionals stuck, held back, especially when it comes to taking on big initiatives such as starting and growing your own business this year. And these are not theoretical, no fluff, just straight talk from the trenches, things that I've faced myself. Almost every single one of these fears I've faced over my 20+ years of entrepreneurship. And also if you've got a fear or a challenge on your mind, drop it in the comments. I'll do my best to tackle it today. And if it's something very personal or something that you just want— you don't want to share publicly, you can DM me on LinkedIn or email me at feras@startupwithferas.com. It stays between us. And if you're new here, welcome to this channel. I'm Feras Alhlou. I got into entrepreneurship back in 2003 after a painful and very difficult layoff. I struggled. I struggled a lot, but I pushed through, built a business, built systems from the ground up. And then with the help of my co-founder and an amazing team, we grew that business to 7 figures and then to 8 figures before I sold it back— before I sold it to Dentsu in 2019. Now I'm on my 7th venture and I'm helping professionals like yourselves pivot their skills into a profitable consulting business. This is what this channel is dedicated to. And also as a lifelong martial artist, I bring that mindset of discipline, focus, and balance into everything that I teach. Now back to Feras. We all have fears. Some are obvious and some are hidden and buried deep. And these fears, they don't show up the same for everyone. Your fear might be shaped by maybe your personality, your temperament, or your upbringing, or maybe what you've lived through. So today we're stepping on the mat 26 times and we're going to face those fears that quietly held us back and held smart, capable people from taking on these big initiatives to achieve their dreams. And the dream could be to make a whole lot of money. It could be to build an amazing company and an amazing culture. It could be to provide for your family, to build a legacy. Whatever your dreams are, I'm here to support you get unstuck and achieve these dreams. Before we jump right in, Let's make sure we have a comment here. Hello, thank you for joining. All right, can you hear me? I guess you can. If you— we should be good with the tech from what I can tell on my end. All right, good. So before we jump into the 26 fears, a couple of housekeeping items. If you are part of our community, or if you're just new to this channel, I'd love to hear from you. I have these live streams every other Thursday at 1 PM Pacific, 4 PM Eastern, and I help— I address the questions that come my way. You send me a question, a comment, a struggle you're going through, I address it on these live streams. And also, I'd love to hear from you about your wins— small wins, large wins, whatever the case might be. I'd I am here for you, so don't feel— don't hesitate to reach out. Again, publicly leave a comment, or you can email me directly at feras@startupwithferas.com. Now, in terms of the fears, I figured out we have 26 fears, at least 26, and then I'll get some from you during this live chat. Figured out one way to group them is by personality type. And one of the frameworks about personality types and temperament types, the one that I like, is the Keirsey framework. It's on keirsey.com. And basically there are 4 types of personalities. He, he, he basically clustered the 16 from the Myers-Briggs, if I remember correctly, into 4. So the rational, the idealist, The Guardian and the Artisan. So we'll go through these. There's a bit of an overlap, but we'll go through these depending on the personality type. So if you're the Rational type, if you're the— maybe you tend to overthink, or the Strategist type, I think the first few are for you. And I'll put each one of them on the screen here so that you get to see the question. And then also, if you get a comment, if you have something specific that you want me to address, don't hesitate to add it in the chat. I will add it into the queue and then we'll share it. So first, first one first. Let's see. What if, what if I'm not an expert yet? Give me one second. Here you go. What if I'm not an expert yet? It's a common question I get all the time. You have some skills, You are eager to start your business, but you have very little confidence in what you know. A couple of things here. One is if you don't have any skills, you can't have a business. I don't know if you can be employed. So you must have some skills to start a business. No-brainer. But based on what you see on YouTube, based on what you see with some of, some of these, um, get-rich-quick schemes. You can make $10,000 a month right away overnight. No, no such a thing. So you have to have some skills. If you're not an expert, that's okay. You only need to be a few steps ahead of the person you're helping. So if you are an HR manager and you are dreaming of having your own HR consultancy, you know about HR, about payroll, about performance reviews, about systems and processes for employee feedback, when to give raises, when to give promotions. You know, you know about that from your current job. A lot of business owners, especially small and mid-sized business owners, they have zero knowledge or very little knowledge about HR. So even if you don't have 15 or 20 or 25 years in HR, if you have a few years of experience in HR, you can definitely have an HR consulting business and initially work with those smaller businesses where they don't have an HR manager. The business owner, or maybe the COO, or the, the small team that, that this business has, they have no systems in HR. They have— they haven't done performance reviews. They have an issue with employee retention. Those problems you can solve although you're not a master, you haven't reached mastery in HR. So, so again, look at expertise on a continuum. You can be a beginner one day, you can take on, learn, take some courses, some get some certificates, and then you can move from a beginner, especially if— and if you do, if you do a few reps, if you do some, some projects, if you again tap into your experience into things you've done in the past. All of that will give you something you can package as an offer and go and sell to your potential clients. Of course, going to Fortune 500, uh, for the— you know, going to a list of, you know, top companies, Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, and trying to sell them if you just started might be difficult unless you have experience in working in HR for those companies. Again, I'm using HR as an example, but the way I want you to think about it is if I'm a few steps ahead of the problem, of the person who has a problem that they're looking to solve, then I can help them solve it and I can turn this into a business. So that is the first question. Again, for those of you who are joining in now, feel free to Post your questions. I'm going through 26 fears and challenges that we face as we try to take on big things, big initiatives, including starting and growing a business. But I'd love to also answer questions and comments that come our way, um, as we go through this. Now back to the questions. The second one: I need to figure out my perfect offer before I start. That is a valid Fear, valid concern. A lot of times people don't have an issue with skills or what to, you know, the experience that they bring to the table, but they're not sure how to package it. They're not sure how to present it, how to price it. What is it that they want to sell? Whom they want to sell to? That is valid. So you— there's a process to define your offer. And in my, um, in my video about a couple months ago, I had this ultimate guide, the ultimate guide to starting a consulting business. I walked you through— I think I spent 15 minutes on how to package your offer. But basically, if you have skills and there are people who have a problem that your skills solve for, and these people are willing to pay you money for it, then that's your offer. That's a business. If there are problems that you can solve and people are willing to pay for your time, your effort, your IP, intellectual property, your product, your solution, your process, then there's business. So if you're not sure how to figure out your offer, my recommendation is you have to do— is to do some research. So you have to talk to people. You can do some online research, But I'm a big proponent and I recommend and I want to nudge you to speak to real people in real time, in real life, and understand the issues they're facing. Let's say you are— let's say you're an IT consultant and you are— you really know about cybersecurity and how to set up systems and processes and technology and configure routers and computers and all that. So that a business is protected from cyberattacks and they have solid security processes for their employees and for their computers and their systems. So identify that these are your skills. Then who do you want to sell to? So let's say you want to work with nonprofits for whatever reason, maybe because you have a good network of people who work in nonprofits, or maybe you want to work in healthcare because you have a network in healthcare. So what you want to do is define your skills, define the audience, then speak to people in the audience. So for example, if you have someone who is maybe a manager, IT manager at a company, someone who's a CIO, a Chief Information Officer, someone who provides similar services to your audience, speak with them. Understand how your buy— how your potential clients buy this type of service. Understand how much they're paying for it. Understand how they— what that kind of— what kind of pain points that they are facing. Maybe, maybe they're not happy with the current providers because the current providers are not responsive. Maybe the current providers are not— they're very expensive. Maybe the current providers have quality issues. And any of those areas, if quality or responsiveness or price or pricing, these could be your differentiators. So you can come into the market with the skills, with the solutions that you can offer, and then differentiate on, again, price or level of service or the quality of the deliverables. And I have the sheet. Let me walk you through it here. I'll do it live. I have this sheet called I called it 10+5. To help you define your offer, I want you to speak with 10 potential clients and research 5 competitors. Let me share my screen and share this with you. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but I do want you to see it if I can find it now. Of course I can't. Well, I think I had it right here in front of me. I just have to move my screen. So it's right here. Let me share it. One second, please. There you go. So in this sheet, again, you can go— I'll put the link in the description. Uh, it's 10+5. I call it the, the business idea vetting worksheet, and it helps you Refine your offer and you talk. I have some blank sheets for you to fill. You can make a copy of this spreadsheet and then I have some sample data for you. So basically find the name, the association, they're your friend, they're your colleague, your vendor, your supplier, and then ask them, do you have a need of what I offer? Do they hire contractors or do they have this service done in-house? What do other consultants miss? How much do they charge for it? And then I have all this filled out for you so you can use this data to understand what kind of questions to ask. And then the next thing is to research competitors. Check out their websites, check out their social profiles, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Instagram, what have you. See what reviews people have about these suppliers, study their websites, anything you can get your hand on from your competitors. It'll be really solid information to help you stand out, differentiate from your competitors. So again, I want— if you check out that video on how— on the ultimate guide to starting a consulting business, uh, you'll— I went into this whole process with a lot of depth. So, uh, for now, just check this out and you should be able to Make your own copy. Let me know if not, and then fill it out. Research again. Research your research your your competitors. Pick five of them, and then talk to ten people, and you'll have a much better idea on what you want to offer, and and and if you have something to offer, and then how you can how you can stand out. Next one: What if no one buys what I offer? Not what if no one buys it? So so you have an idea. You package it into an offer. You're starting to sell. What if no one buys it? A very valid fear, very valid concern. Let me tell you this, and this is not to discourage you from starting a business, but I'll tell you upfront that no one is going to buy from you the first time you pitch to them. Yes, there's a chance. There's probably a chance like winning the lottery, 1 in 293 million. That's that's your chance. So it's okay. Go into this game of entrepreneurship knowing that it takes time for you to learn how to sell. It takes time for you to learn how to market. You will stumble. You will make things make things up. You'll you'll struggle. You'll you won't you won't have answers to all the rejections and the questions that leads and potential clients throw at you. That's just part of the process, and that's a real fear. It's real. It's really hard when you go and talk to a client and you're all excited and you know you can help them. You know that you can go and address their cybersecurity issues. You know you can address, if you're a copywriter, if you're a graphic designer, if you are a financial advisor, if you are, as I said, an HR consultant, any of these, you are solving problems. And you know you can talk to a business owner and you see that they're struggling with all of, in one or more of these areas. but they're not buying. Well, that is part of the process, is for you to understand the pain points, to have a conversation with the lead, to pitch. And just so you know, your conversion rate might be 20%. That is, if you talk to 10 people, only 2 might buy from you. Initially, you might have to talk to 20, 30 people to have maybe 2 or 3 just talk, you know, talk, have a conversation with you, and maybe one will end up buying. So what if no one buys? That is, that's a valid concern. And if no one is buying, that means there's no revenue. That means your business is at risk. But it is part of starting your own business is to learn how to sell, to learn how to market. And then by learning how to handle rejections, by experiencing the pitching and the active listening and responding to clients with a proposal, maybe missing the target on pricing or on scoping, getting those rejections is part of this game of entrepreneurship. That's why so many people fail at it. The failure rate in entrepreneurship is high. A lot of it is due to the fact that people don't learn what they need to be learning. They don't learn from their own mistakes. They don't study enough. They don't do the reps that are required for them to be successful. So if you have this concern about no one is buying, set your mind that it's going to take me a little bit of time to learn sales, But part of that learning is for me, education is— learning is education plus application. So you have to apply what you learn. And again, there's a lot of details on how you put together. I have a video on— actually, if you go to my playlist on the YouTube channel on sales, how to pitch, how to pitch in a formal environment, how to pitch in an informal environment, and you'll learn how to turn this pitch, which sounds like a dirty word, but into a conversation where you're actively and attentively listening to people's aspirations, pain points, goals, and see how you as a consultant can help them solve these issues and help the clients reach their goals and aspirations. So at the end of the day, if you don't start selling, if you don't start pitching, if you don't start networking and and presenting yourself as the problem solver, you won't sell. And unless you do it, you don't have to do it 10,000 hours to be a master at it. You know, you might get a few rejections first time. You might get several rejections the first, you know, several times you go out there, but you'll learn from those incidents. You refine your offer, your pricing, the way you share, the way Um, you know, defining the audience, making it— maybe, maybe you're reaching a different audience. So all those are part of, part of sales, and all of those, you know, might make it sound very difficult for you to sell, but the minute you step on the mat, the minute you face that fear of, of selling and, and starting to educate people about how you can help them, uh, the more the faster you'll be, you'll come around and sell. And trust me, I speak from experience. When I started my first business, I had zero experience in sales. I had to learn it from the ground up. I used to listen to these CDs. For those of you younger who don't know what a CD is, I used to play it and play it around again and again and take notes into exactly how you'd present yourself, how you'd take notes, what questions to ask. And then I stumbled a lot. For the first several months, and then eventually it got easier, it got easier, and then I started to enjoy it because now I'm helping people achieve their goals. And yes, I'm making a buck, and yes, I'm making money, and but at the same time, there's an exchange of value. I'm making money, I'm helping out, and also the client is benefiting. So it's really part of it is technique and, and, and things you have to do, and part of it is a mindset. You just have to step on the mat. You have to knock on doors, hit the pavement, and then you'll get much better at it. And you will end up— hopefully end up enjoying this because you're into entrepreneurship because you want to help others with your services, with your expertise, with your skills. If, if you're not into that, I don't know if you're— maybe you shouldn't be in the services business. Maybe you can be just sell products and not to talk to people, not talk to people. All right, next. I'm not a sales or a marketing person. That's another concern. I sort of addressed this a bit in this previous question, but don't let this fear block your vision or prevent you from starting a business. There's only a small percentage of us who are natural salespeople. Those good, those really polished, good salespeople, they've worked on their craft, and depending on what statistic you look at, one I saw a while ago, 68% of founders start a company and they have no background or very little background in sales and marketing, so you're not alone in this. Um, but part of, part of it is it's, it's, it's learnable. Sales and marketing, those skills are learnable, and you won't learn them until you start. And it's really important for a lot of you out there who think that you can start a business and then you can delegate or you can outsource these things that you're not good at. Now I'm big on delegation, I'm big on outsourcing, but initially— another hard truth here is that initially you want to sell, you want to learn how to sell, you want to learn how to market. I want you to learn, I want you to wear every hat in the business. Delegation is later. Initially, when you're first starting or when you're thinking of starting That's your mindset. I'm going to go in and learn everything that has to do with this business, not just the technical area of expertise that I have, be it IT or HR or finance or copywriting or home decor or whatever the case might be. So, so in addition to your own skills, you got to hone these skills, continue to learn and improve your skills in your technical area, but these other skills that are as important to starting and growing a profitable business as your technical skills. So sales and marketing fall in the same category. If you don't start, you won't learn, but, and it's really important for you to be directly involved in this process from the beginning. Later, as you figure it out, as you know how to sell and how to market, and as you know how to how to do basic accounting and how to, how to put together, set up maybe your own IT. That is later, once you have some revenue and you have some profitability, then, then you can start to think of ways to outsource certain things, certain aspects of the business, potentially hire someone to help you amplify what you've already built. But without you having a solid foundation in these areas of the business, it's going to be really hard for you in the future to delegate. It'll be very hard for you to discern the right person to hire to help you in sales if you don't know sales. They'll take you on a ride. Trust me. It cost me thousands, tens of thousands of dollars when I hired a seasoned salesperson to sell for me. This is my first business. I didn't know any better. And we got zero leads, zero business, and he put us back 3 months in the hole. Because not only we didn't sell, but we counted on that revenue to do a whole lot, a whole lot new things and new initiatives. So again, I'm not putting all the blame on that salesperson that we've hired. Yes, he should have done better, but also it was on me for prematurely bringing someone in without me understanding how to sell and how to sell to bigger companies by that time that we were hiring that seasoned salesperson. So I want you to do sales and marketing yourself, and you can learn. We have a— I have an entire— on the website startupwithferz.com, an entire curriculum on sales, and then there's also a similar one on marketing. On the YouTube channel, there's a playlist on sales, there's a playlist on marketing. Take— listen to one video, One video a day, take notes, apply those notes, get yourself ready and go out there and talk to people and have those conversations and learn how to convince them to buy from you. All right, so it is a process. The next one, again, this is— remember, I put— for those of you who joined us a bit later, I've— we're talking about 26 real fears that are holding ambitious professionals from, from taking on big initiatives, including starting and growing their business. So I've gone through, uh, 4, and now on my— the 5th one. But if you have a specific fear or a challenge on your mind, send it to me, put it in the comments. I'll be— I'll address it real time. And if it's something very personal, just email me. I'll keep it all confidential. Now, I need more data before I decide. Okay, so this is if you're the kind of the left brain type, if you're the what I call the rational from the QRC framework, the overthinker, the strategist, you need data, you need a lot of data before you start. Well, yes, you can get data from ChatGPT, from Gemini, you can get data online, you can do your research, that's all good to do. I want you to do some planning, of course. But you're not going to have 100% complete set of complete data. You have to put your assumptions to test. You have to be out there talking to people. So if you need some data on the size of the market, if you need some data about are people looking for this kind of service, if you're looking for data on what is, what are some of the Growing sectors. This is a really important data point here, or data points. You don't want to start in a, in a sector that is going down. Um, you don't want to— you want to start in a sector that's booming. So, so for example, um, as we have an aging population, healthcare for the elderly is one of the top growing sectors. So if you have— you can offer services and consulting around that you will have a market that is a sector, an area of the economy that's growing. Okay, obviously anything to do with AI, anything to do with automation, anything to do with learning these tools and technologies and, and helping companies become more efficient, that is, that's something that, that is big. So, so there are reports that you can have on LinkedIn and others. You You can look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can look at the SBC or the chambers, your local chamber of commerce. It's good to do some research, but you don't wait to have a 50-page business plan before you start. I want you to gather data about the service. And again, that competitor research I talked about earlier is important. Also, refining your audience is really important and understanding their needs, wants, desires, wishes, their prejudices, their perspectives on things, understanding your audience. That's, that's good data, good data to have. But then the best data, the best data is your own data. When you go out there and speak with 50 leads, let's say in a span of 2 months, you speak with 50 leads and 5 of them end up being customers, and you deliver and they're happy customers. Maybe a couple of them were not that happy. Now you know, now you have data and you know that you, you need to get 5 clients, you need 50 leads. And then those, those clients who were happy, get a testimonial, get a case study from them to help you, to help you promote your business to new leads, right? And then those clients who were not happy with maybe what your, your, what you, your end product, the timing it took, the pricing then that's also a signal. That's data from real clients whom you've dealt with that will help you improve your offer, improve your delivery, improve your marketing, your messaging for the next round of marketing and sales and delivery. So, so the best data is your own data, but I don't— and I don't want you to spend again weeks and weeks doing research because you will, you will never have a complete data set regardless of what you do. So do some research, implement, do some research, implement, learn from that implementation, and then go back and improve your processes. All right. Let's see the next one. I need more data. All right. What if my idea fails publicly? So I've heard this from many people. When I started my first business, and actually every other venture— and for those of you again who just joined us, um, this is on my 7th venture. Some, some did okay, some went to 7 figures, and we had one that went to 8 figures, and we sold it to Dentsu back in 2019. Dentsu, the global media giant. And in every big initiative or in every new business that I started, this fear, this concern is always present. Now it's sort of, you learn how to deal with this over time, so that should not limit you from taking some steps forward, just the fear of failing should not hold you back, you want to reduce the likelihood of failing. You want to increase your, the, your chances and the probability of succeeding, and that would address that fear. So that fear of failing publicly is real. But also, if you started a small business, like, who's keeping track of, of your business, whether you succeed or not? I mean, your close ones, your family people, your friends will know. But if you're struggling for a month or 2 or 3, like, who, who is really paying attention to, to, to what you do? So it's really you. It's on you to make this work, and it's on you to make— to learn, and it's on you to, to give it the best, uh, so that you can increase your chances of, of succeeding. But no one is out there following you, um, that you need to worry about what they think of you if you fail. So that's just more of a mindset thing. I think that fear, at least for me, that fear of not making it, the fear of failure, in a way drives me to work harder, to learn, to be open-minded about like, what can I learn from my competitor? What can I learn from my previous experience? What resources I can tap into so that I can maximize my— the likelihood of me succeeding? So again, some of these I think I heard this a while ago in a martial art context. Courage, or even actually I think in the military, courage is not the lack of fear. Fear is always there. When I step on the mat and let's say there's some sparring or, you know, about to take a big fall, you know, your training partner, at least in Aikido, they're about to have this big throw and that breakfall and It's gonna, it's gonna hurt. So, but if you do it properly, you train properly, then you can handle it. And actually, it feels a bit refreshing. It's kind of odd in a way, but, uh, but that fear is there. But moving with the fear, taking that step forward and say, you're forward, you know, I've trained, I've stretched, I learned how to do a smaller fall. Now I'm gonna push myself just a little bit. That's what builds this muscle of resilience in the case of a business where you literally get a whole lot of rejections, but you go back at it again. So the whole fear of failure in general and failing publicly is there. It is a real fear, and it might stay with us for a long time. But by us doing the research, the learning, the application, Learning from others, learning from our own mistakes, we can then counter that fear and build build this muscle that we can deal with these challenges. So so that's and I know we have a couple related questions on this. So so so I'll elaborate a bit more on this, and I'd love to hear from you. For those of you who are live with us now, leave me a comment on what is it that you're experiencing when it comes to this. the fears of starting, or the fear of investing more in the business to grow, or the fear of even at work, you want to ask for a promotion and you're not sure, or you want to maybe change jobs and you're not sure. So when you're about to make a big decision, there's a lot of voices, a lot of maybe whispers in our minds. So there's a process to deal with these, and I'm addressing this you know, from a business perspective and from starting your own business perspective, but it is applicable to a lot of big things we do in life. So again, I'd love to hear from you on how you've experienced and how you've dealt with scenarios like this. The next one, what if I'm chasing— sorry, what if chasing my dream hurts my family or hurts my close ones? Those who are around me—that is another concern. I mean, I can tell you upfront here that success is not guaranteed. No matter what you see on social media, no matter what I call these get rich quick schemes out there. Success is never guaranteed, but if you put the effort, if you put the time, if you work hard and you learn, and especially you learn from someone who has been to where you want to go, not just any random guru, people who have done similar things, they can show you a map. They will not tell you the step-by-step journey. Maybe they will not tell you their— your journey will be different than theirs, but they can give you a map. A map makes us able to navigate to our destination, uh, simpler, um, because we've— we see the routes. We might take different routes, but we can get from destination A to destination B, uh, through paths that other people have taken and have demonstrated that you can get there to that destination. So So if you're— and the next set of fears here, they're more applicable to the personality type, what Kirsty called the idealist, the visionaries. Again, we're talking about— we're grouping these fears by sort of the logical type, the very structured, the overthinker, maybe the rational type. Now, the next set of fears, it's probably more aligned with those of us who are more of an idealist, more visionaries. So, so we care a lot about, you know, very empathetic, and, and we care about people and how people feel. So if you are concerned about hurting the people around you because you might fail, so it's a very valid consideration. So the quick solution, easier said than done, is to get their buy-in. If you have a spouse, you have a significant other, you have someone who's, uh, someone where your financial decisions— this person is impacted by the decisions that you make— make sure you get their buy-in. Make sure that they are consulted. So, so don't make that the mistake of, of making a big financial decision borrowing $25,000 on your personal maybe account, and then your spouse, your life partner is not aware of that decision. That's just not going to make things easy at home or happy at home. And if you're not happy at home, if things are not stable at home, it makes the waking hours more difficult. You're not as focused on the business. So to the extent that you can get, you can consult with, get those people who are around you bought into what you're about to do, do it. And I can tell you that my wife and we've been, fortunately, we're blessed, we've been fortunate, we've been married for 38 years and counting. And she's, she's not involved in, in my business. She's amazing at what she does, and she does— she's a social worker, and I don't know how she does this very difficult job, but she loves helping others. So she's not into, into the business, but I do update her on major decisions before I got into a business, even after all these years and after selling an 8-figure business and And we're financially comfortable. We're very fortunate to be in that position. I do involve her in major decisions. I give her like here's here's here's the vision for this business. Here's some key milestones. Here's what we'll do if things don't work out, so that that she feels that she is she is involved in what I'm doing at a higher level, and and and she's supportive. And and the one at one thing I would add here key essential. Advice here is that those around you, your family or the close ones or your friends, those who count on you, if they see you working really hard, they will support you. They will believe in you. They will send positive vibes your way. They'll pray for you, whatever the case might be, but they'll be there for you. But if you go in and this big claim that you want to have your own business and become a millionaire, and you, you risk, you bet the whole farm on this thing, and then you're working 30, 40 hours a week, and then you have 3 hobbies and you're traveling every other weekend, you're not going to get the respect or the support of the people around you because you're not demonstrating I don't want to say you're not earning their trust. You're not demonstrating that you're serious about this venture. So, so make sure that if you're about to make major decisions, financial decisions, or even just time commitment into, into your new venture, get the people around you involved, get consulted, and then work hard. Show them that you're serious. About this venture, and you will get their support. I've seen it with me, I've seen it with other people, and I've seen the other side of it, the, the horrible side of it, when, when things— when people are not brought, brought in, when partners— when a partner, um, makes some serious financial— a serious financial decision that impacts the family. I mean, this— things could, could go really, really bad in that scenario. All right. Moving on to the next one. How do I balance purpose with stability? That's a good one. And that's something that's a challenge could be playing in the back of your mind. I mean, even if you can't directly, if you have a specific purpose, you're really into a cause, or you want to support a specific nonprofit, or you believe that you, you're just created to, to, to serve in a certain way. Maybe initially, for to pay the rent and support your family, you, you can maybe put a lot of time into it. Maybe you can volunteer time, maybe a few hours a week on the weekend. Maybe you can, if you can't, you know, if you can't contribute financially, offer time and effort from your area of expertise. If you're a marketing consultant, consultant, maybe for the cause or the nonprofit that you believe in, maybe offer to do some marketing consulting for them at no charge, or maybe at a highly discounted rate. But put your focus on the business, because once you make it, and once you make it big, You can support this cause in so many, so many different ways, financially and otherwise. So that's one way to look at it, and that's what I've done in my own personal life and business life. My wife and I got this volunteering and the nonprofit bug early on in our lives, actually, and we always find ways to help nonprofits and offer either financially, contribute to a nonprofit, or donate or just volunteer our time and effort, and we brought our children that way as well. So when I'm very, very busy in a startup, especially in the early phases of any startup, I have— I'm working 70, 80 hours a week, there's no time to volunteer, so I donate financially, and later when things slow down a little bit, I can potentially go and help a nonprofit come up with a marketing strategy document or give them a financial plan document, or maybe visit their, their growth plan. So I— that's what I've done, is when I have time, I give some time. When time is tight and we have financial resources, we donate. And if you don't have time or you don't have financial resources, I think intentions are really important. Have that intention, have that thing in inside of you, in your mind, that you will help this cause in the future. As soon as you Free up some time from launching the business, growing the business, and then as soon as you have some resources. So so that's that's one way to balance it. That's that's what I've done, you know, for in my own personal and professional lives. And then as you grow your business, and as you are profitable, and as you live the life the life of someone with a purpose, your team members. Will notice that. You can— you'll create a culture where your team members also want to serve maybe that same purpose or another purpose, another cause. And then you're amplifying how you're helping and how you're serving, because life and happiness is not— is not all about making money. Money is important. Money will give you optionality. But you want to make money and also you want to serve, you want to offer, you want to help, especially in these times we live in where Life is tough. A lot of people just don't have the means, don't have the resources. So as we you make it and you make it big, always have that good intention of helping others. And and so many doors will open for you. Actually, when you help others, you benefit more than those who are on the receiving end. At least that's my experience. All right, moving on. I'm scared of disappointing. People I care about. So that's similar to what I answered earlier in terms of what if I fail, what if chasing my dream hurts those around me. So if you're scared of disappointing the people you care about, similar to what I said earlier, be honest and let them know that you will give it your best and you'll work very hard And you will maintain these key relationships just because you work hard, and I'm all for working hard, as those who know me, working very hard, you will still maintain and nurture key relationships. If you have some young ones, starting a business, working 60, 70 hours a week is no excuse for you not give attention to the family and to the little ones. It means you have to make some sacrifices. It means that you have to give up maybe a hobby or 2. If you have 3 hobbies, in this phase of having little ones and launching a business or taking on a big initiative, there is no time for 3 hobbies. There is no time to be hanging out with the guys or the gals every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It just doesn't work that way. So something has to give. You make that call. But if you want to start and grow a business, it's going to take 60, 70, 80 hours a week depending on what— how big of a project you have. And if you have key relationships in your life, your partner, your spouse, aging parents, young ones, or someone, some elderly care that you're responsible for, do not neglect these relationships. Give these relationships the attention they need, but then cut down on other things that typically the leisurely type, the leisure type, cut down on those and focus on the business and key relationships. You might not have a social life for a while. it might be, it might be okay. It's worth the sacrifice in my mind. Again, you have to keep some minimum. I think on certain aspects of life we keep a minimum. On other aspects of life we have to put what it requires, like taking care of the young ones, supporting the spouse, but then focusing on the business and getting that business off the ground and getting closer to your dream of of revenue and 6 figures and 7 figures and profitability will allow you to come back and have fun and have more hobbies in the future. So you can't have all the things all the time. You cannot have all the things you want at the same time. You have to— there are phases in life, there are seasons in life, as they say. So you have to pick what's important in this season, in this phase. All right. The next one. I don't— again, this is under this category of the idealist, the visionary, as Kiyoshi calls them in his quadrant. So the fear here, the concern, I don't want to come across or to seem selfish for wanting more. My friend, I think very few people will judge you negatively for wanting more. Yeah. I mean, you have to provide for yourself, for your family. If you have kids, they, they'll be going to college. So wanting more, there's nothing wrong with wanting more. And I add to it, and at least that's my philosophy, that's what, that's what I've, I've been into for a long time, is, is I want more and I also want to share. As I get more, I want to share. And I'll give you an example. When we started our very first business, and we carried this over to other businesses, we said that we will take a percentage of revenue, 1 to 2% of revenue every year, and not profit, revenue, and we will share this with nonprofits. The first few years we couldn't do that because we were in the negative. We're barely covering our costs and paying rent and whatnot. But later, as we became profitable, we always, we were true to that principle, to that important value we set up for our business is that we will take 1% to 2% of revenue. And now keep in mind, when revenue hits 7 figures, that 2% is pretty significant. And then when revenue hit 8 figures, that 2% became very, very significant. So we had wanting more. There's nothing wrong with wanting more, but I think This is not— this is a business channel, but I think life is more, is more than just having money, and happiness is more about having more resources and a nicer car and the latest phone and the latest and the larger house. Yes, take care of yourself, take care of your family, work hard, you've earned it. Spend on your family, spend on, on things that are important. But I think it was the philosopher Dennett, I think he said. He said, find something that is more important than you and dedicate yourself to it. Like, this is happiness, is you find something that's really important. Not just me, I, and myself. Take care of yourself, work out, eat healthy, have fun, travel with the family, have some fun, 100%. But that shouldn't be the full focus of our lives, right? So, so if you're the type of You're feeling awful that people think that you are selfish because wanting more. Have that in the back of your mind. Get more and share more. Okay? And for those of you who are not into sharing and serving and helping, check it out. Consider it. I think when you help others and when you share from what you've earned and when you share from the skills that you have and the resource that you have, It's amazingly rewarding in so many different ways. And the universe finds ways, or God depending on your belief system, will find ways to return this to you for in your own, in your own growth and happiness and, and feel of the, that, that feeling of fulfillment. So, all right, good on that. Moving on. My partner does not understand my vision. That is a concern. Some, a lot of, I don't know the exact percentages here offhand, but in some businesses you'll see family members or friends are into the same business, so they're aligned, they're putting time into growing a business. At times, like in my case, my spouse was not involved in the business in terms of the hands-on support, so You have— it's funny, actually, when we were doing analytics, digital analytics, and she's a highly educated woman and, and she reasons, she understands tech and all that. But trying— for me to try to explain to her what we did, we do analytics, digital analytics, like, what is that? So, and then, you know, remember my, my kids and my wife trying to explain what I do to to their friends, it was really, really funny. Yeah, they work with data, and then they would say they build websites, because we used to sell websites back in 2003, but now everybody knows about data, so it's different. So if your spouse, partner, those impacted by your decision don't understand your vision from a technical perspective, that is okay. If they don't see the opportunity, maybe they understand the technology or the specific service you offer, but they don't understand or they don't see that vision of growth. They don't see the opportunity. You have to deal with it. It'll give you, again, peace at home, peace outside of work. Peaceful mindset will help you at work. So I would share with them. I would sit down and say like, here's the research I've done. Here's what some of the competitors are doing. Here's where I can see me coming in and standing out. And this is going to be not an overnight success. It's going to take months, potentially a year to get to 6 figures, or maybe a couple of years to get to 6 figures, but here's what I'm doing. So the more you share and the more you, you walk the talk and they see that you're passionate about it, that you are putting time and effort into it, the more they have an understanding of why you're doing this, and the more supportive they will be. So they might not see the same vision, they might not agree with what you're doing, but if they show you that you're serious about it and you are a— you're a man or a woman of your word and you're fulfilling your other responsibilities, most likely than not will get the support. All right, the last one here, I think, in this category before we move to— I have a couple more. Okay, a couple more. Let's see. What if my passion fades once I start? So that is burning out, and just people just calling it quits after they start is not uncommon, and it's a concern. So there's just— I can speak I could do a whole session on this actually, but my point here is that discipline and commitment are more sustainable than passion. And there's a whole discussion on passion, the overlap of passion, the ikigai framework with the 4 overlapping circles, your passion, what the world needs, what the world will pay you for, and your skills. So the more overlap you have between all of these, I think the more satisfied you will be, the more productive you will be, the more helpful you will be, but I want to— passion is important. If you hate what you're doing, it's really hard. It'll be annoying. It'll be boring. It'll be challenging to, I think, to grow a business where you just hate doing what you're doing. You might hate, dislike certain aspects of a business. That's just common. It's okay. Actually, if you like, that's normal, right? You might hate accounting, but you have to do it. Eventually, you should outsource it to someone, and then you get the monthly report at the end of the month to look at the profit and loss and see where you can move some of those dials. But what's important is discipline and commitment. Those are sustainable, and that will show you that you're making progress, just like in martial arts, just like in any other art. It requires repetition, it requires that discipline, that focus, and I remember I teach youth class and I always, when we have a new youth and trying to show them how to roll in Aikido, there are a lot of rolls, back rolls, forward rolls, most of them they don't come in with a gymnastic background, so you break it down, you start very low, you start on the mat and then you roll while you're on the mat, then you get a little bit off the mat, and then you sort of halfway, then, and then, and then you roll standing. So, so, but I tell them after each class, do it for 10 times. Just start very slow, build that confidence. And then once you, once you get that feeling of, okay, it's working at this level, then I go higher, riskier, takes more courage, but that's okay. Now I've built that muscle of, of taking smaller steps, and then And then after a few weeks, you'll see these youth, they're just rolling standing, like beautiful. They flow beautifully, right? So same thing in business. That discipline of keep doing the work, of committing to doing the work, committing to the process will help you maintain— will help you in a way maintain that that light that you have in you, that fire that got you to start a business to begin with. So focus on being committed to the process, committing to doing the work, and you'll see yourself improve. The improvement in what you're doing is key, and if you're not passionate about many things, many aspects of the business, That is okay because over time, as a business owner, as I said, my advice is initially you'll learn, I want you to learn every aspect of the business, but over time, you'll focus on a few things while you delegate or outsource many other aspects of the business. So there is a phase where you have to do everything, including things you don't like, and that might cause some burnout, but you got to do the work, you got to do the work so that you are You have revenue and you're profitable so that you can delegate and then unplug from the things that just you're not good at or that you're not passionate about or that you don't like doing. All right, good. Next one. Now we go into the, the guardians, and these are the, the planners, the, the protectors, as Kiersey would call them. So, so the next 6 or so fears apply to them. I can't start until I have a detailed plan. This sort of— there's an overlap between these folks and those who are sort of the logical type. You want— I want you— short answer, I want you to have a plan, but I don't want you to have a 100-page plan. So Whether it's the overall business plan or maybe a marketing plan or a sales plan or a hiring plan, I want you to do planning. I want you to plan, but you can't be stuck in planning forever. When I started, when we were actually, this is another business. When we were going into, we were doing well here, well into 7 figures. A friend of mine from my very first job, was living in Dubai at the time. He moved back to the States, and he said, hey, Feras, you're doing well here. Why don't you start a business in Dubai? And we spent some time thinking about it. I had no interest, no idea what to do, how to do business in the MENA, in the Middle East and North African region. Like, I just didn't have that kind of background in terms of business. So we kind of kept delaying things and kept delaying things, and then there was one opportunity, actually. A large contract came up away without even having a whole lot of business presence yet, but through my partner's connections, someone said, yeah, we need that kind of service. We were a Google partner at the time, and they were looking for a Google partner. So we closed the first deal while we're still debating about the business, whether we want to invest time and effort into it. So in hindsight, we shouldn't— and this is, again, this is after 10 years in entrepreneurship and and having built some expertise, right? I was still hesitating. I was still planning, I think taking too long to plan. So the lesson there was do some planning, do some vetting, talk to potential customers, research competitors, get data from the market, and then start implementing. In tech, they call this, you can have a pilot, you can have a beta release, an alpha release, You can have a proof of concept. All of these are things where you're not 100% committed yet, but you're trying things out. You're seeing if the market will react positively to your offer. And if that's the case, then you can build on it and go full speed. So I want you to do some planning, but don't get stuck in planning for months and months because you might lose the opportunity. And then without action, without traction, it's just really hard to keep keep the energy behind what you're trying to accomplish. All right, the next one. I need to get my finances 100% secure first. Well, I don't know what you mean by that, because unless you have saved a significant amount, you have some resources, you inherited some money, or then you got, you got pension you've got some investment now that has matured, you have a house you sold, whatever the case might be, if you have enough money to sustain you for a year, you're in a very good position to start a business. I have an entire, I think, 2 or 3 livestreams on building your 6-month financial runway, your financial runway, because Because I want you to have a runway before you go into a business. And if you're— if you don't have the resources, if you're working 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet, maybe this is not the right time to start your own business. Because I want you to go in with some— with your finances in order, to the extent that you can. Sometimes you're forced into it, and, and if you're forced into things, sometimes you make it work. But for the rest of us if you're not ready to go all in and if you're not forced into entrepreneurship right away, potentially— not potentially, my recommendation is build a financial runway, at least a 3-month, ideally a 6-month financial runway, so that you know that you can cover your basics for work and at home, and you don't have that fear that how do I pay rent Every other week, so you have that in order. You have your finances in order, and then you can focus on on the business. So, so, so, so check out that six-month financial planner livestream I have on the channel. I'll include the link in in the description after after the livestream. But I want you to to also be aware that 100% security, 100%. Stability is never there. You could be making good money today at a company, and the company could shut down this branch that you're in, and then you're out of a job. It happens. Layoffs, just this morning I read another wave of layoffs, 14,000, 15,000 people will be laid off. Forgot the— I think it was Verizon, right? Amazon just announced another wave of layoffs. So in terms of security and stability, Life doesn't work that way. So do— you have control over setting up a financial runway, and do that, at least a 3-month runway. And then you have some peace of mind that rent is taken care of, the basic needs are taken care of, and now you can put all of your energy into getting that business off the ground. And for those of you who are working full-time and thinking to start a business, the best time to start a business is not when you're laid off, although if you're laid off, you have a lot of time on your hand. The best time to start a business is not when you're burnt out from, you hate your job or your manager or what you're doing, and you just send your resignation, and the next day you want to start a business. No, the best time to start a business if you're working full-time is to start doing all the prep work before you leave. So you can do the vetting, the research, getting your LLC, all that good stuff. You can build a website. You can do a whole lot of, a whole lot of sort of prerequisites before you take the leap. You can even do some, some of the marketing, some of the outreach before you leave. And then when you leave, when you turn that resignation letter, then you are already hitting, hitting the ground running. And you, you've saved time because when you are working full-time, you have salary, you have the benefits, you have the 401, so that's not getting impacted. Now again, as I said earlier, in life there are sacrifices, there are trade-offs. So if you want to build a business while you are working full-time, it's going to take a few hours a night and maybe a day on the weekend if you're serious about it. You can't do this— you cannot start a business with an hour here, an hour there. If you're serious about starting a business It's going to take some sacrifice, some time in the evening, sometime on the weekend, so that you can build some momentum behind this idea that you have. Good. Then next one: I don't know what tools or systems to use. Of course you haven't done this before, but the good thing is you're not the very first one to start a business, and there's so many resources on how to set up a business and how to have a project management or a task management tool and what tools you need for email and what do you need for— what do you need for sending emails, what do you need for, um, managed social media, what do you need for internal maybe tracking of certain things. So, um, so you can, you can start with a very simple and low-cost slash no-cost tools, and that will get you going. And I, I have actually a, a document listing all these tools and all these systems that you need. But initially, don't— especially if, if, if you like systems and processes, you know, that you're the guardian type according to Kiersey, um, you want to be focusing on selling. You want to be focusing on getting revenue. So yeah, you've done the planning, we've done that, we understand our audience, good, we know our offer, we know our pricing. You should be spending 80, 90+ percent of your time reaching out to people, talking to people, listening, pitching, sending proposals. That's where most of the time should be spent on initially. Then you can start looking for systems. You don't need a CRM right away, a customer relationship management system like a HubSpot or a Salesforce. You need a CRM eventually when you have maybe like 50 or 100 qualified leads in a spreadsheet and it becomes just unwieldy to manage this. Go to CRM, and I have some videos on this, but initially The focus should be on selling, on marketing and selling. Systems will come later. You can use, you know, for task management, for project management, you can use Notion, Asana, Basecamp. There are a gazillion of these, right? Just pick one, use it, and then go from there. You can use Google Docs and spreadsheets, get the Google Workspace package, and you have most of the things that you need, including slides if you want to do presentations. All right, and I'll include a link in the, in the description on the list of systems and processes that you will need for the business. The next one: I'm scared to leave my job, I need stability. So, so you're scared to leave your job, you need stability. It's valid. It's, it's a big fear, probably one of the biggest fears Along with the financials. So that's something to think about. If you cannot, as an entrepreneur, if you cannot tolerate some level of uncertainty and if you're not willing to deal with ambiguity and unknowns, and you're, you're not willing to learn how to do that and do that, maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you. Entrepreneurship isn't for everyone because you have to take risks, take calculated risks. You have to deal with uncertainty. You have to deal with unknowns. You have to deal with learning how to be resilient, falling back and getting back up. You have to deal with people, clients. You have to hire people, right? Maybe you didn't have to do any of this in your current job. So, so I'm not saying this to discourage you from starting a business or growing a business, but if you are afraid of, scared of leaving the job because you like stability, you have to be willing to learn how to deal with uncertainty, how to deal with managing unknowns, or, I mean, dealing with the unknowns, or learning how to learn new things, because you have to learn new things in selling and marketing, in HR, in IT, all of that, right? So I would say You don't have to. I think psychology they talk about that sudden exposure and that gradual exposure. So depending on your personality, it could be cold turkey. You resign, you go all in, and there's there are merits to this approach. You resign, you go all in, and you give it everything you have. And and there are signs that some people. some businesses actually end up— people have a higher degree of a higher likelihood of succeeding if they go all in, because if you're sort of doing things on the side and if you're gradually going, you might not be as committed, or you might not build enough momentum for you to see the fruits, and then you give up on this idea of starting a business. So long story short here is build these muscles to deal with this fear of leaving the job? Like, when I leave the job, what is it that I'm going to encounter? There's a financial aspect we talked about. There's the financial aspect. There's the fear of failing publicly. There is not knowing what to do. Let's list all these challenges and then learn about them and try things out on the side. So if you're really, really afraid and scared and you feel awkward talking to people, you know, asking people and strangers for money— that's what sales is— then start. You can do this on the side. You can go to the local Chamber of Commerce, you can go to any networking event in your area. If you live in a small town, maybe go to something in a larger city next to you and go meet people even before you start a business. Just come up with an idea that you have in mind and just tell people about it. And, and get their input. So that will build that muscle of you talking to strangers, right? The next thing would be financials. Okay, I have my 6-month financial runway that, that I can build, right? That will address the financial concern. Finding clients, delivering a service to clients, project management, managing a big project, hiring people. So each one of these, there's a set of muscles that you have to, that you have to learn on building and growing for you to have your own business. But if any and all of this, it doesn't sound interesting at all, then maybe entrepreneurship is not for you. I'd love to tell you that everybody can make it, entrepreneurship is for everyone, you'll make $50,000 in the first quarter. Nope, it doesn't happen. It's not that way. Um, so, so keep that in mind. I think there's a path to learning entrepreneurship and to managing the risk and to addressing the fears, but you have to be serious about wanting to do that. All right, the next one: I don't want to risk my reputation. So that is similar to what I just said about, about the fear, the fear of failing publicly, and also that I'm, I'm a director, I'm a VP, I work with these big clients, and now I'm going to have my own business and I'm going to be selling to, to, to these mom-and-pop shops. So, so, so that's the real thing as well. And I remember from my own experience when I was laid off in 2003, I was a VP at a high-tech startup here We were selling to— was it infrastructure technology, cutting-edge technology at the time, selling to the telecom sector. So AT&T, Cox, these big names, and we were meeting with C-level people, and I was a VP, and life was great. When I was laid off and couldn't get a job and decided to start a business, now my partner and I were selling websites, small 4-page websites To the local restaurant, so it took a whole lot of mental mental shifts here and and reorientation and acknowledging that you know what work there's no shame do it doing good work there's no lack there's this shouldn't this this will not impact my my reputation I'm I'm working hard I'm starting something new I want to support I had a young family at the time. I was the sole breadwinner at the time, so it was my responsibility to be out there and work hard and build a business, and that was the number one thing for me, that's the reputation I wanted to be known for, that I'm taking a risk, I'm building something from the ground up, yes, it's risky, yes, it's hard, yes, There are a lot of obstacles along the way, but that was my— that's the reputation that I wanted to have. That's what mattered to me. I couldn't care. It hurts sometimes. Like, I was a VP and now I'm selling stuff to small businesses, but you know what? I had the CEO title now, the CEO of this small company that has zero clients, right? So on the business card, it looked cool. I'm a CEO. I'm a founder. So, so, so your reputation, I think if you're doing the right thing, if you have good moral character, you're reliable, people can depend on you, you're trustworthy, you're working hard, that's your reputation, my friend. That's like Warren Buffett said, your reputation is like fine china, very expensive to get, to acquire, and very hard to keep, very hard to break. So, so your reputation, the reputation that you want to worry about Or not worry about that you want to build is that person who takes risk, who works hard, reliable, trustworthy, kind, providing for themselves, providing for their family, building a legacy. That's what matters. Everything else, who cares, man? All right, the next one. Where was it? We talked about reputation, and we're we have probably another ten minutes or so, and we'll be done. I hate uncertainty. What if I lose control? Do we really have control? When COVID hit, did we have a whole lot of control? If I don't know if you have if if you have kids, you think you control them. Wait till they get older. We don't have control. We might have some control over certain things. Yeah, we control our actions, our reactions, our behavior. That's what we control. But other things, you could get laid off the next morning. You could get fired the next morning, rightfully or wrongly. Wrongfully, I don't know. You, you could— things just happen outside of our control. So You don't need to tolerate— I mean, you do need to tolerate uncertainty, as, as I just mentioned earlier, but don't also underestimate your ability to adapt and to pivot and to get back up after you fail. We have agency. We learn, we learn how to get back up after we fail. It's not easy, but you can collect yourself Learn from that experience and then move on to the next. So, so you can go cold turkey on these things, that sudden exposure, and go and have a big pitch to a big client, your first pitch. That's one approach. Or go gradually, my recommendation, and, and, and learn how to give up that control. I think a lot of this here is we're used— I think it was Reid Hoffman who said, like, when we were in the cave many thousands of years ago, in the caves, we were all entrepreneurs. We had to find things on our own. Over time, we kind of got used to this 9 to 5, and we think stability and control happens in this 9 to 5. But just look around you. There is no 100% stability. There's no 100% control. Things could happen. Even it could be a health condition that could hit us, and that could just put us back. I don't know a year. So so do everything we can in our capacity to succeed in in whichever path or in whichever venture we're pursuing. But know that success is not guaranteed. There'll be obstacles. There'll be— there's the whole matrix of known knowns and unknown knowns and unknown unknowns. And this is life. Um, we can't control many things, but we can control again our, our action. I think it was Stephen Covey who said— I think it was the second, the second habit he talked about, um, or the first habit you talk about you're in control. Like, you, you do— you don't control what hits you, you control how you react. And we learn, we can learn how to react to a rejection. We can learn how to react to someone who's not responding to us, who's ghosting us, a lead who's ghosting us. We can learn how to run a marketing campaign that doesn't generate leads. A lot of these things are not in our control, but we know how to improve How to learn from those experiences and then improve for the next time around. Then next one, I have too many ideas. I cannot pick one. Okay. As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen. So it's all about execution. So, and this is, we're moving into the artisan category. So if you remember, I talked about those 4 quadrants. I categorize these Feras by those 4 quadrants. And the last one, we talked about the logical type, the— we talked about the idealist, we talked about the guardian, and now the artisan, sort of the creator, the adventurer, right? So those not into processes and systems and structures, so, so, but they're very, very adventurous and And they think about a lot of things. So one of the fears here is, or the challenges is, I have too many ideas. I can't pick one. Pick one idea of everything that you have. Pick the one that you have the most skills for and also in a sector, in a market, or an environment where there's a need for what you have. Pick that one. Do your research, do the vetting, put your offer together, and then focus on execution. Put all these other ideas on the side for a quarter, for 3 months, and then give it everything you have. Give this one idea everything you have and get some traction. And I think from what I've seen before, if you focus on— I believe if you focus on this one idea and you get some traction, that traction will lead to some outcomes and some growth. And that growth, especially for the creator, the creator, creative minds, for the artisans, artisans, that traction, that growth will open up new things for you to tackle. So you're not doing these repetitive, repetitive things that, that drive you nuts. So you have to do some repetitive things. You have to do a lot of follow-ups. You have to do a lot of outreach. You have to handle people ghosting you. You have to go to these networking events even though you might find it very difficult for you to just talk to strangers. But as you build traction with one idea, as you build traction with one venture, and as you start to experience growth, growth creates new different— new challenges and new areas that require your attention. So that will keep your creative juices Juices flowing, so that's that's my recommendation. Next, I start strong but lose focus fast. Yeah, if you the creative type, the artisan type, I can see that. So so it's okay. It's okay to be creative. It's okay to brainstorm. It's okay to be. Um, you know, open-minded about things. But building a business requires— I don't want to say but— in addition, building a business requires time, requires focus, requires time management, focus management. And, and, and, and you don't have to— like, you don't have to, um, like, spend the whole day, if you're that type, you can kind of alternate between certain tasks. If following up with leads is going to drive you nuts, say, you know what? Between 2:00 and 3:00 PM every day, I'm going to send these emails, these follow-up emails, and just go in there, remove all distractions, and just do it, and then move on to something that's a bit more creative for you. So it is important to focus on the things that the business needs at the phase you're in. I think the book I read— which book it was recently— it was the book by Ari Levine, the founder of Waze, the app, the mobile app. He said there are different phases of growing, you know, a startup, and every phase requires the founder to be fully dedicated to that, the needs of that phase. So for example, in a tech startup, typically if you need to raise a lot of money the founder has to be focused on raising money because you've gotten to a point where you have— you've done maybe some product-market fit, you've done some proof of concept, you've got some initial feedback from customers, you've got some revenue, and now you need— you need— you need investment, you need money to scale the business. So, so what he said in the book is that in that phase, you have to figure out to delegate almost everything else and focus on raising funds because the growth and the survival of your startup depends on that. So the same thing for a small business in service and in consulting. Initially, the focus should be on sales and marketing. As you start to get clients, you need to shift your focus to have delivery, implementation, making sure the client done— you want to make sure the delivery and the implementation is done. with excellence, and then the clients are happy, and then, and they can go back and dedicate more time to sales. So, so, so you want to have— maybe if we're doing 90% of the effort, the effort on marketing and sales, when we start to have clients and projects, that could maybe slow down to maybe 40-50% of my time. And then the other part, the other part of my time is on helping, on, on delivering to clients. So, so So you got to be focusing. Long story short, you have to be focusing on what's important, what the business needs at the time. Otherwise, if you just love marketing, otherwise, just otherwise, you really can't make it. So I think following certain practices, removing distractions, and, and having maybe specific time slots. For me, in the mornings, I always do a quick check on email, anything urgent on Slack, make sure everything my team requires, and then phone notifications are off, I actually minimize my email tab, and I just focus on the Google Doc that I'm in. I do that for half an hour, unplug to quickly check on a few things, especially if my team is waiting on me, and then I go back into the zone. So find a mechanism that works for you to help you focus, because you got to focus. on the task at hand. The next one, and we have, I believe we have 5 more to go. I hate routine. How do I stay consistent? Again, this is harder for the creative type. If you're more right brain, I hear you. I hate routine. How do I, how do I stay consistent? You have to find a rhythm that works for you. Consistency is important, and several— I'm not going to, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Part of having a business is that you have to do boring things, especially initially, because this only— even if you have a co-founder and you split the different tasks in half, within your role, within your area of the business, you still have to do things that maybe are boring to you, or they're just boring, period, but you don't have cash yet to outsource these things. So consistency is important. Your business needs you to do the things day in, day out, but you can find ways to be creative about things. You can find ways to, again, maybe during lunchtime, unplug and just go have a walk with your co-founder or by yourself and just Think about envision the future, envision how you will go beyond selling these $2,000 projects to $20,000 projects. So there should be time for you as a founder to— you have to, you have to find time, you have to allocate time to focus on the business, because if you just continue to work in the business, you'll never grow. So, so find time, and you look forward to that time where you are thinking very creatively where you are thinking about growth, where you are thinking about the new marketing campaign, but I would be lying to you if I told you that you wouldn't need to be, that you don't need to be consistent in some boring stuff to get some traction initially. So that's just the nature of it, is you got to do what you got to do and find ways for you to do the things that you love doing, And as your business improves and as you have revenue and profitability, you can start, and you should start delegating things that you're not good at or you shouldn't be doing to others while you focus on what the business needs and the things that you're really strong in, and that will help you again grow the business. Good. Here, another one for the creative minds: I jump into projects that burn out quickly. Okay, I need more context here, but if you— if it sounds like you have a lot of business ideas, you know, you try something. I mean, this— if it's a hobby, my friend, it's a hobby. Do whatever. Try something new every other month. But if you want to start a business, if you are serious about starting a business It's not a hobby then. It has to follow— starting a business, growing a business has to follow a certain approach. Basically, this is like a broken record now, but basically you have to market and you have to sell. So, so getting into projects is fun, is creative. Yeah, new things you learn. You're learning maybe new skills. You're learning new, new You have new hobbies, you're meeting new people, that's all great, but jumping into projects where you're not completing those projects, and you're not setting a foundation for the next phase of a business, you're not really building a business, it's just a hobby, or you're not serious about it, so my recommendation is to try to find a business idea that you can be interested enough In longer term, this way naturally, naturally you'll be, you'll be a bit more passionate about it. And then tolerate the boring stuff and the stuff that is just maybe you're not good at. You just, there's just no other, there's no escape. You have to tolerate that and you have to get into it and do these tasks. Who else are Who else is going to do it? Like, who else is going to send invoices to customers? You have to do— later I want you to get a bookkeeper, but initially you have to try— you have to track your expenses in a spreadsheet. When it comes tax time, trust me, you'll appreciate this advice. So, so these things you have to do, but if you're Start, but if you start a project and then as soon as the boring things come up in this project, you leave it and move on something else, then you're really not serious about starting a business. So, so build the muscle to focus on one thing that, that you can be interested in enough for the long term and spend time on it and get traction. The minute you get traction, the minute leads are talking talking with you, the minute you, you sell, the minute you deliver and the client is happy, it's very satisfying. And then you know what? Okay, I've done it. It gives you confidence. Then you do it again, increases your confidence. And then as you have a few of these clients and some revenue, some cash, some profit, then you can outsource or delegate or hire someone who will help you do the things that you, you don't want to do or you're just not good at. The next one, and we have 4 more to go. What if I pick the wrong opportunity? You pivot. That's just the short answer. No one has a crystal ball. You pick something, you talk to clients, you do your best in reaching out and pitching and sending proposals, but nobody's buying. Well, maybe you have to pivot. Maybe you thought you'd be selling IT services to nonprofits, and then you find out that these nonprofits have no money, or they're just very, very cheap, or they just can't afford to pay your premium, then maybe shift to another target audience. Or maybe you thought you're really good in coaching, and once you started doing it, you're not good at it, or just people— it's just not connecting with people, or maybe the type of coaching you're doing is just not resonating well with, with the client. So maybe you shift, maybe you do something where you do it online and you sell this as a DIY, do-it-yourself, DIY type maybe offer, right? So, so you're more likely than not to get into something that will not be 100% right from a pricing perspective, from a market perspective, from a skill set perspective, and then you pivot. And pivoting, martial arts, it's all about pivoting, but also in business, learning how to be kind of quick on your feet and moving not too prematurely. You want to do everything that you can in terms of talking to people and getting leads, pitching to leads, And do this and do a lot of that, but after a while, if you're stuck, if you're at a dead end, you have to make a turn, you have to pivot and go and pursue something else. So I do talk about pivoting. I have a video on that as well. When to double down, when to pivot, when to call it quits, these are options in front of us. So I'll also add the link to that in the description. After the live stream. All right, the next one: I don't want my creativity to die once I scale. If you are scaling, if you are growing by design, you'll be encountering new things. On the hiring front, when you were by yourself, maybe you had a couple of contractors, you used Upwork, you've used one of those platforms to get the help you need. But as you have clients and now you're looking for maybe an account manager to manage these clients while you focus on sales and marketing, that you love doing that, and that's where you're very creative in connecting with people, you can start getting people to fill in the gaps and, and do things that maybe you, you don't see as creative, right? But even doing that, once you hire, let's say, 2 account managers, there are new things for you now in that area of managing people, of managing account managers. Or let's say you hire a salesperson, managing that salesperson. Dealing with people is not— there's some science to it, but it's also, it's an art how to deal with people and their challenges and their support them in growing and correcting their— correcting them when they, they make a mistake. Like, there's a lot of— there's a lot of areas to be creative in running a business if you're scaling. So if your concern is that I won't be creative in my area, my technical expertise, let's say graphic design, because now I have to worry about hiring and accounting and payroll and legal Yes, those other areas of the business will be important to manage and you have to pay attention to it and that will take some of your creative time, but if the business is growing, you can later hire an office manager, you can hire, if you're growing, you can have a director of operations, you can have a bigger company, maybe a COO, chief operating officer, if you end up being like 7 figures, And those will take on these responsibilities where they are excellent at. They can do this job with excellence because that's— they're good at that, and then you can now, your creativity in how to manage that senior team that you have, or how to manage, how to be creative in growing these big accounts that you have. So with the growth, you'll see a whole lot of opportunities to be creative, not maybe in the specific area of the business you're in today, But you can have, you'll have opportunities to be creative in so many other areas of the business. All right, and we have 2 more, and these last 2 are more of sort of universal fears. They apply to all personality types, and the one before last is, what if I'm just not, if I'm just not Sorry, what if I'm not— I can't read now at the end of this session. What if I'm just not cut out for entrepreneurship? Valid question. I used to encourage everyone to get into entrepreneurship. Over the years, I've dialed down a little bit on this, and I say it's amazing. Entrepreneurship is very rewarding, not just financially, In so many different ways, it's amazing. Not everybody does it. If you have it in you, if you have that fire in you that you want to have your own business, be your own boss, become a millionaire, build an amazing culture, give it a try. Not just a try; there's no no try. Do it. Plan for it and do it. But this idea of that I'm not cut for entrepreneurship, I don't know. Okay, are people born entrepreneur entrepreneurs? People. I don't know. That's that's something to to maybe investigate further, but sometimes it's outside of your control. When I was laid off, I couldn't get a job. In the back of my mind, I always wanted to have my own job, but yeah, it's not for me. You know, I was a VP at the time. I can make good money, but then I was forced into entrepreneurship. I couldn't get a job in as a full-time. professional. So, so I ended up having to learn— me, my co-founder and I had to learn everything from the ground up. So we leveraged our skills working in corporate for some years. Um, we, you know, I was good in project management, people-facing type roles, right? That I leveraged that, I learned sales. So to the extent that I was able to do it, and I learned everything, everything from the ground up. I think everyone else can do it. What you need though is that mindset that it's going to require a lot of hard work and that you have to learn new skills and things you did not, you did not have to do when you were working, when you were working for someone else. I think if you have that mindset that I can learn these skills and I'm willing and able to put the time, a lot of time beyond, beyond 40 hours into this venture, you will increase your chances of succeeding significantly. But after— and, and if you try that for 6 months and it didn't work out and it's just you cannot deal with the uncertainty, you cannot deal with the the feast and famine in terms of revenue, you cannot deal with hiring people on your own and people leaving you. If it's just not— that's not for you, then go back to corporate. And what you've learned in that experience is invaluable. You learn so much in entrepreneurship because you're building something from the ground up, and that's hard, hard work. And you pick up a lot of skills that will help you, that will become— that will be beneficial in whichever route Your career takes you. All right, and the last question for today: What if? What if I never feel ready, and and it's already too late? So what if I never? What if I never? What if I never feel ready? and it's already too late? Well, these are kind of 2 questions. If you never feel ready, dude, get ready. Like, I don't know, what, what, what is it that you're not ready about? You're not worried about the offer? Okay, spend next week— between now and the end of the weekend, I will have a draft offer. I will document— I'll use Feras's 10+5 template to come up with my my, my— to talk to 10 customers and research 5 competitors. And I'll use the other spreadsheet to document my skills. And between this combination of my skills, hard skills, soft skills, what the competitors are doing and not doing, and what the customers are asking for, that will help you refine, define and refine your offer. So then you're ready. I'm not ready to sell. Okay, learn about sales. Go to my playlist and Learn about sales. Go to startupwithferus.com and go to the sales portal. I have over 20 articles on every aspect of sales. Learn it and then go out and talk to people about it and then practice what you just learned. So readiness— preparedness will help you be ready, and part of preparedness is to go to these areas of the business that you don't know and start to learn. and then educate yourself about them and then apply them. So remember, learning is education is— sorry, learning is education and application. So I never feel ready, I never feel ready to step on the mat, okay? You gotta step on the mat first, okay? Put on the gi, put that white belt on, and then talk to the instructor, to sensei about, I haven't rolled ever, I've never done any rolling, so take it easy on me. Tell the instructor that, they'll work with you to roll. That's if you come to our dojo, I'll be more than happy to teach you how to roll safely. It'll help out outside of a martial arts context. So not feeling ready, I think the antidote to that is that start taking small steps in these areas that you worry about and you're concerned about. Now, if it's already too late, It's never too late. Colonel Sanders started KFC in his 60s. Okay? So we hear a lot about Silicon Valley icons and they started obviously when they were young, most of them, not all of them. The founder of eHarmony was in his mid-40s when he started eHarmony. So there are many names, but if you are young, you have typically have time, you have time and you're healthy in most cases. So put those to your advantage. If you're older, you might have some obligations, so you won't have as much time. Hopefully you're still healthy, but you have resources. You have a net— maybe you have some savings, you have connections, you have a network. So whether it's age or if you say, you know, it's already too late, I don't know what you mean by too late. If you're— I mean, there was a stat I read that there's an uptick in those in their mid-60s and older who are starting their businesses now, their own businesses, because they have 30+ years of corporate background experience, and we're all— we're living longer, and you're still healthy, and you want to be active, and I encourage you to be active, so what do you do? Start your own business. That's great. So it's never too late. Learn something new, my friend. If financially you're secure and you don't want to get into entrepreneurship, Stay active, learn a new hobby, volunteer, serve, help. But I don't know, I don't know about, about, uh, too late. It's, it's kind of, it's tricky because we're living longer, we need to support ourselves and our families longer, things are getting more expensive. So if you're in your mid-40s, mid-50s, it's not too late for certain. You have to do, you have to learn a whole lot more And you have to, again, at 45, at 50, it's harder to learn certain things, but if you put your mind to it and you put the time behind it, you will get there. So that is it for today. We went through 26 fears and challenges that are holding professionals, ambitious professionals, from starting, taking on big initiatives, and starting launching and growing a business. So, so let me know if you have other questions, other fears, other challenges. The chat will not be live after we, we close this session, but you can comment on the video, you can email me, you can direct message me on LinkedIn, and you can— if you're finding this content useful, hit the subscribe button, follow me on any of these social— on any of the social channels, and we'll help you get to get you off the ground, get you, get you into entrepreneurship, and get you to 6 figures and 7 figures, and help you avoid the mistakes I made so you can get there to your destination with less gray hair, with less, with less challenges. And see you next time.