Overcoming the Fear of Starting Your Own Business

For today’s topic, we’re going to be covering how to get over the fear of taking the big leap of faith into starting your own online business.

The startup phase can be the most daunting, yet at the same time the most exciting part, since you start out full of enthusiasm and want to use that momentum to fuel your way forward.

Just like the strong man pulling a 20-ton truck, it takes a big push (or pull) in the beginning to overcome inertia and get things moving. Once in motion, things tend to get relatively easier. The key is to maintain this momentum.

The unbalanced forces at play for the above quote refer to your willpower in the beginning, momentum in the middle and the opposing force is the resistance (in the form of problems) that life will place in front of you.

If you’re anything like me when I first started out, you’re energised to build your business and work towards your vision of financial, time and location freedom but sometimes find yourself procrastinating and obsessing over the detail, causing paralysis analysis, hindering any progress.

We’re going to discuss the best ways to overcome this today.

Let’s start with who am I and why and I’m placed to give this advice.

I started my first e-commerce business back in 2015 and didn’t have a clue. Literally, not a clue. I learned through almost a decade of trial and error what not to do, so that I can show you the quickest and easiest route to start and scale your own online business.

Since then I’ve scaled multiple brands to 6 and 7-figure annual revenues (one brand has done over 3 million in the last 12 months alone!) and I now work with e-com brands around the world to show founders how to start and scale their business and live life on their own terms.

To help you overcome the fear of starting your own business here are the important lessons I learned that you should try to avoid.

#1: Don’t quit your day job, build your biz up on the side

A lot of early stage entrepreneurs come to me asking when the best time is to quit their day job and go ‘all-in’ on their new business.

I made the mistake of quitting my 9-5 without an escape plan and this caused me all kinds of stress. I had bills to pay and no money coming in to stay afloat or dedicate time into getting my supplement brand off the ground.

Authors such as Richard Branson sometimes recommends the jump out of the plane and construct a parachute on the way down, but this can be catastrophic since you’re kicked into survival mode.

I managed to pull it off, but it meant working 1-2 side gigs to cover expenses.

If I was to do it again, I’d keep my main source of income, and leverage my mornings, evenings and weekends to try get ahead of the game until my business income is able to replace my 9-5.

This alone will save you incredible amounts of stress.

#2: Overcoming fear of failure

Getting out of your own way when starting up any new entreprise sounds easy in principle, but in practise can be the single biggest hindrance to making any meaningful progress.

I frequently hear budding entrepreneurs talk about all the things that can, and probably will go wrong in their new enterprise before they’ve even taken a single step towards building it.

You’re worried about funding, about managing, staffing, creating and testing products or services. You’re thinking about building a website, cash flowing your way to $100M and all the steps in between.

Most times, in this state you catastrophize. Your reptilian brain lights up, which craves comfort and security. It works in overdrive to the point of talking yourself out of taking the initial necessary steps towards building your dream life.

You’re scared of what others are going to say if it all goes wrong.

You’re afraid of ‘losing it all’ and having to start from zero.

Whilst all valid worries, almost 100% of these are all fabricated by your mind.

You’re thinking and planning for putting out level 3 and 4 problems before you’ve even got the level 1 plans in motion.

if you take time to step out of the situation, things are already bad.

Bad enough to motivate you to want to build this business and create life on your own terms.

That’s the end goal, right? Worst case, you spend some time, energy and resource on this new endeavor which has uncapped upside and don’t quite make it a success first time. Yous see, if you follow #Step 1 above then you don’t need to worry about this.

You’ll build it up on the side.

Your downside is covered.

Failing at business isn’t a zero sum game. This is because the the next time you try, you’ll be starting from experience.

If you fail fast and fail intelligently (and don’t give up) this knowledge can campoung and you’ll know what not to do. And sometimes, this is as valuable as knowing what to do.

So why make it any more difficult for yourself by thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

Switch this and replace these thoughts with all of the things that will go right once you’ve executed correctly.

I can’t stress how important it is to build your mindset as an early stage entrepreneur. The skillset, without the mindset, will leave you upset.

Time for an important plug (sorry, not sorry) 😉 

I preach that mindset constitutes almost 90% of any successful entrepreneurial journey. If you’d like 1-1 mindset coaching and strategic planning for your online business, I’d actively encourage you to book a call at Invent Impossible.com. You can also DM me on Instagram at @louantoniomatera.

I’ve designed this to be the resource that I wish existed when I first started out on my business journey. It would have saved me countless years and 1000’s of unnecessary mistakes.

Anyway, where were we…ah yeah, here’s #3:

#3: Time and energy management

One master algorithm for life I’ve learned goes something like this:

‘Where attention goes, energy flows and results grow (or show)”

What does this mean for you as an early-stage entrepreneur?

It means that you need to control and value your attention. We live in the attention economy now and this dictates that we need to regain sovereignty over our time.

This has even more relevance if you’re in the start-up phase and still working a full or part-time job to cover financial bases.

You need to know what your money dials are. What are the key functional areas of your business that are going to bring in sales? Most times, this is orientated around sales and marketing, but in the beginning, it can

“Whatever hinders your task, is your task” is a great axiom to help keep you focused on the few key projects that matter.

You must learn which functional or technical part of the business to work on that is going to move the needle and get you closer to launching, or bringing in more revenue.

This will change dependant on what phase you’re in, but you need to be crystal clear on your short and long term objectives and keep these front of mind.

With technology and all things around you vying for your attention, carving our dedicated ‘deep work’ blocks of undistracted work will expedite your progress and move you closer to the next milestone.

You need to work through periods of deep creative work to expedite process and follow Seth Godin’s advice to Eat That Frog.

Without going down another rabbit hole, this metaphor refers to doing the thing you least want to do first, and not spening time shuffling papers, looking busy just to feel productive. This is what the 9-5 grind encourages you to do, to look productive and pass time.

This won’t sit well in business where every day and micro-action counts.

Set tight deadlines (study Parkinson’s Law) and make sure you’re making even 1% progression everyday in line with your north star goal.

One final side point that I feel is important to mention is getting out of the habit of only working when you feel like it.

Develop monk-like discipline and condition yourself to work regardless of how you feel.

This takes us nicely to #4:

#4: Get out of your own way

Imposter syndrome is very real. It still exists even for me after 10 years and countless millions made in online sales.

This is a topic in and of itself which we’ll cover in a future edition, but without me spending time trying to convince you that it’s all a facade (it is), I’m going to posit another interesting point of view from Alex Hormozi.

He basically said that if you have imposter syndrome, then it’s actually correct.

You maybe aren’t good enough - YET.

It’s a healthy sign that you’re growing, progressing, stepping out of your comfort zone and that there’s an element, or elements of this completed skill set stack that you’re not fully proficient in - yet.

It shows there’s still learnings ahead to master the skill, but the key lies in: are you going to run towards it, and build the skill set, do the hard thing, put yourself out there - or, will you assign the voices in your head power and shy away from the thing.

If there’s a message i could portray and get across to everyone on a billboard it would be this”

‘Don’t believe everything you think’.

My short form advice on imposter syndrome is to stay in the hungry, eager pursuit of knowledge and feel the fear, and do it anyway.

For me, every day is a school day.

Every situation presents an opportunity for learning. This learning can only happen if you immerse yourself in the ‘thing’ and ignore the voices in your head. It’s your job to prove them wrong.

Confidence without competence is delusion. The task here is to build your undeniable stack of skills and prove to the world and yourself that you’re capable of doing extraordinary things.

In the beginning, focusing on controlling your controllables and try not to get too caught up in the weeds. It’s already hard enough without self sabotaging yourself via your internal dialogue.

Change your thoughts, change your life.

The key here is to focus on what’s within your direct sphere of influence. A strong mindset will power you through all of the learnings necessary to complete whatever stands in your way.

#5: Set unrealistic expectations

Yes, you read that right

Sometimes, you have you be unrealistic to be realistic.

Like a ship setting out on a voyage, you must have a clear heading.

I’ll talk more about goals and destination setting in another post, but the key is to make sure that you know where you’re going and what your optimising for.

A goal without plan, is a wish.

if you’re simply striving for mediocre pursuits, then the moment business gets hard (which it will) then you’ll be tempted to quit.

You need to get crystal clear on how this bueinss is going to impact your life and those around you. The same goes for your customers.

I’m not talking about goal setting per say, I’m talking about a full scale vision that documents everything this business could be for you.

If you cap it and lower to realistic expectations, I’m telling you now - without a strong vision you will quit.

Spend some time on curating.

Ak yourself, remove any and all limitations: what does my dream life look like.

Get granular with this, box off all all the senses. If you’d like the link to my Alchemy of Self Document, feel welcome to get in touch with me directly by replying, or sending me a DM.

This is a powerful document that I guarantee will change the course of your life. it did for me, anyway - and all I can speak from is experience.

If you don’t take time to do this, your life will be molded to suit those around you. Without a destination, you’ll be swept up somewhere you don’t want to be, and you’ll call it fate.

Don’t be this person.

#6 Get support from experienced mentors.

I’m hoping this one goes without saying.

The only life hack and shortcut to success in any domain is to learn the lessons from those who’ve blazed the trail and are living the life you dream to have one day.

If you’re starting out and don’t have the resource to buy, then who are you following on social media?

What documentaries are you watching on Netflix?

Which podcasts are you subscribed to and learning from?

Which books are you reading by successful entrepreneurs?

Which YouTube channels are you tuned into every week?

Remember, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with - this includes time spend virtually, too.

How much of your low activity transitionary time (such as walking, driving, lounging or training) are you dedicating to listen to the stories of other successful entrepreneurs?

We live in the information age and access to high-quality information is all around us, most of it is a few dollars a month or streaming for free.

You have no excuse not to be learning every day.

For those of you who would like a helping hand with scaling your online business, you can even leverage my direct experience of starting and scaling multiple businesses from the idea stage to 7-figure revenues. I’d actively encourage you to apply to apply at Invent Impossible.com. You can also DM me on Instagram at @louantoniomatera.

I’m hosting one-to-many calls every week where you’ll have direct access to my domain experience and experience in mindset and online business.

That’s all for today folks, let me know what you think about this in the comments along with topics you’d like me to cover for you. I read and reply to every one of your replies, so give this a like, subscribe and I’ll see you on the next one!

To your unstoppable success.

Lou Antonio x