Starting a business could be dangerous, especially since half of them fail inside the first five years.
But Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, a global company with greater than 1,200 employees, says waiting to get began could be worse than failure. Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur value over 200 million dollars which recently launched vYve, a four-month, $50,000-per-person accelerator program for entrepreneurs and corporate leaders.
In an exclusive interview, Vaynerchuk, who performs under the pseudonym Gary Vee on social media, he told Entrepreneur how to overcome “impostor syndrome” and start achieving your corporation goals.
What is impostor syndrome?
Vaynerchuk says it’s completely normal to fear the financial risks of starting a business and feel like a fraud.
“Impostor syndrome is just a new, fancy word for being insecure. And that’s allowed. You have the right to be insecure,” Vaynerchuk said. “We’ve repackaged it.”
Gary Vaynerchuk. Photo: Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images
Uncertainty is a feeling that could be overwhelming, but it may well be overcome, he says.
“My advice to someone who wants to start a business is: The longer you wait to not do it when you’re really ready, the more it becomes a thing,” Vaynerchuk said. “The longer you stand on the edge of the pool as a 6-year-old afraid to swim, the more you wake up, like I did, and you’re 9 and you’re still not swimming. That happened to me because it started to become a thing in itself. So my recommendation is: Don’t be delusional. Have a plan.”
It’s higher to try
Vaynerchuk added that the “most important thing” in overcoming fears is taking risks.
In other words, it’s higher to start a business, fail, and then come back and take a latest job than to retire and ask yourself, “Why didn’t I do that?”
“‘Why didn’t I do it?’ is the great poison of the second half of our lives,” Vaynerchuk explained.
He believes the financial concerns that entrepreneurship brings pale in comparison to the regret someone might feel if they didn’t take on the task at all.
More people can take risks and explore entrepreneurship. The number of recent business applications reached a record high last yr, with 5.5 million latest applications submitted.