BUSINESS & FINANCE

The Fear Factor in Business

What is fear?
The overriding cause of fear in most of us is our excessive obsession with ourselves: our limitations, our weaknesses, our inabilities. Our conclusion that - for whatever reason - we might not be able to do one thing or another.

Kinds of fear
Fear of Failure
Many people have never taken the necessary step toward starting their dreamed business, take their business to the next level, or even take a definite decision to commit to one thing or the other because they are afraid of what will happen. Some people don’t even get married because they are afraid their marriage may not be successful.

Fear of Mistakes
This is another form of fear. Some people never take a step or attempt anything because they don’t want to make mistakes. Now, life is full of mistakes, and some of the mistakes we make are actually necessary in order for us to arrive at our destination. But if you are afraid of making mistakes, you will never discover, you will never find pleasant surprises, you will never walk into the abnormal.

And sometimes the abnormalities and rarities of life are what bring about or lead us to miracles and unusual findings. And the unusual findings are what make you a superstar, because what everybody else can easily find is nothing. But the unusual things that you walked into are what separate you from the rest. Sometimes, a step that is considered a mistake may be the step to discovery. There are so much of the world to discover, why would you allow fear to stop you?

Fear of Rejection
Some have never loved, cared, commit themselves, nor show others what they are capable of just because they are afraid of being rejected. If you give something to somebody and he rejects it, it’s that person’s lost and not yours, why should that bother you? Until you give it, you can’t know if the other person will accept it or not. But fear of rejection can stop you from ever loving, ever caring, ever committing, or even doing some of the things that makes life worthwhile in itself.

Fear of Change
If I am used to going between Victoria Island and CMS everyday to get to Surulere, and I am afraid that if I decide to take Ikoyi, Ijora and Carter or even somewhere else in order to get there something awful may happen to me. Then I am afraid of change.

On the other hand, if you are used to doing things one way in business, and now that we are in a computer age everyone is saying another way is faster, more efficient, and more productive. But you say no, you don’t want to take any risk with all these new technologies and their challenges, and so decide to stick to what you know. You are afraid of change.

Sometimes, that which you know and stick to may render you redundant and irrelevant in the marketplace. And at the end of the day you collapse with the business or the business dies simply because you have refused to change.

Many factories have folded up because they stuck to using machines that have become obsolete even when new technologies took over the technologies on which the machines they were using were based, and the manufacturers are not even producing the things that those machines need to work anymore. The time they needed to make the change, they didn’t do it and, at the end of the day, the business dies because they refused to adapt to change.

Yes, there will always be some element of fear, but that’s the beauty of life. What does fear represent in business? The unknown. If we knew everything life will be so boring and there will be no need to trust God. There will be no need to believe that God is in control of our lives. We will have it all worked out. We won’t even need God at all. But being able to trust God and take that step of faith, there will be no need for faith if we allow fear to come in.

Change is a part of life. At one point or the other in life we have to make a change in our business or it will be forced on us. For instance, my line of business was significantly affected January last year (2004) when the government announced a change of policy and banned the importation of furniture, which is my own area of business, among other products. If I had refused to change as well but say that since furniture is now banned, it’s either I go completely out of business or make a change in my business strategy in line with the changing policy in the country. I therefore have a choice to continue or join the bandwagon of those who are not willing to change and end up becoming a smuggler with the excuse that all I know how to do is to import. And if the government therefore places a ban on importation I just have to find a way to continue doing what I know how to do.

Would you rather not change than become a smuggler? I’d rather change in line with the changes that are going on in the country than remain where I am and become a criminal by so doing.

Change in life is inevitable. One day you were born as a baby, and then you started to change and became a child, and from there you changed to become an adult, and from adulthood, you changed to become an old person, and one day you will change from life itself to death. Reality of life, change is real. We cannot afford to be afraid of change.