Fear: The Inhibitor and The Motivator

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

— Dale Carnegie

What is fear? How does fear play into business? How does fear affect your decisions with money? Fear is the temporary cognitive and emotional reaction to a threat to potential achievement, according to Harvard Business Review. For entrepreneurs, the fear of failure or losing key clients and money looms. Never make decisions out of fear of money, Ashley emphasizes. If you let fear drive your decisions, they will always be bad. For entrepreneurs, courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to persevere despite it. But fear doesn’t just inhibit, it motivates too. Fear can drive you towards more tremendous success. If you get too comfortable, no progress will be made — you have to get a little uncomfortable to do great things.

When the market goes up or down people tend to panic, but anything that goes down will come back up. If you have the right elements, you don’t have to worry about when the market goes up or down. Different industries go down while others go up — when the tech market goes down, the nonprofit market might go up — so if you surround yourself with a diverse set of clients you won’t have to worry about going without work. With a defined long-term strategy for money, you won’t find yourself in a situation of panic in reaction to the market.