My 1st “business” was buying Levi’s jeans and 2nd hand Gucci bags, freshening them up and reselling them on eBay.
My 2nd was setting up a little stand at the side entrance of my University Campus, selling brownies and cookies. I strategically placed it next to where the Stoners walked back in after their midday puff. Needless to say, I cleaned up.
The next business I founded was a womenswear brand which was stocked in 15 different boutiques and had a relatively decent brand name - we were featured in The Daily Mail on papp'd celebs almost weekly at one point.
Now I run Klowt, the personal branding agency.
All the businesses I started - except for Klowt, ultimately failed.
Those failures stung, but I don't necessarily see them as embarrassing or even a failure, to be honest. As I was saying to someone just yesterday, Klowt wouldn't succeed without those heavy business failures. Because I've learned so much about how NOT to run a business, that I've worked out how to run one well and scale it quickly.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, none of those businesses would have been founded without me taking a risk. No decision I made, no job I quit to start them would have happened if I was worried about “what if it all went wrong“.
There is going to be something that you're weighing up right now, whether it's;
- Asking someone out.
- Or quitting your job.
- Perhaps starting that side hustle...
that you're killing yourself worrying about because your brain is catastrophising all the things that could happen if it doesn't work out.
The reality is, I've got a 1/4 business success rate to date. In my life, it's probably closer to 1/1,000,000 in my decisions making... but that's a story for another time.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is when you take risks there will be times you succeed and times that you don't - both are equally as important.
So don't let the times you don't succeed stop you from taking the risk that will mean you ultimately do.
💜