“Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are at the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.”
Sadly, the stats on business failure back up Mr Taleb’s excellent quote. But we do it anyway. There’s no shame in starting and failing – except through acts of gross stupidity. In fact, for many of us, we just have to start something up, as we’d make shit employees for most bosses.
There’s also no shame in not starting something, but in being part of an enterprise and earning an honest crust. Most of us feed our families simply by doing our jobs. That is at least as honorable as starting a business.
And there’s no glory in starting a business and succeeding if you don’t have the humility to recognise the role of luck, alongside hard work by your team as well as yourself.
[Great, if intense, book. If you get it from our link at bookshop.org you’ll be supporting independent bookstores, and our link will put the commission to women business owners in developing countries.]