Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

In the comments to my post on Boca, Ramiro BM refers to a comment I made in a post he wrote on optimism. There I stated that “you don’t need to be optimistic to be an entrepreneur and that I myself am the living proof of it”. As I find this subject very interesting, instead of answering to his comments in the other entry, here goes a whole post.

I believe optimism is a double edged sword. On one side, often, being convinced that the results lying ahead of us will be positive reinforces our determination in adverse circumstances. Many entrepreneurs are “optimism driven”. Optimism is the fundamental fuel for their engines.

But, on the other side, optimism may be a great source of problems in two similar yet different ways.

For some entrepreneurs, optimism means an extreme crush with their idea, something that makes them more prone to commit errors. In this case, optimism is such a strong fuel that they keep going straight even when the road turns. Not all ideas are worthy nor any moment is the moment to pursue them.

For some others, optimism makes them less capable of listening to others. Whether an opinion against their own comes from a potential investor or from a member of our his/her management team, it is never good to lose our ability to receive and process negative opinions. As in the former case, this is a recipe for trouble.

In my own projects, it has always been better for me to keep my feet firmly on the ground, to very carefully evaluate the risks I will be taking, to pay close attention to dissident opinions, instead of lowering my head and blindly rushing forward, full of optimism and confidence.

Yet, I must admit that in the case of Officenet, the extreme optimism of Andy, my co-equipper, helped me for sure. Sometimes, being two helps to reach a compromise balance.

If not “optimism”, what shall be our fuel?

I know it might sound hard but I believe that the true motivation to start something up has to be that we are truly convinced that that is what we want to do with our lives, not that our idea is so good that it can never fail. The key is to find “an idea worth failing for”. “Passion” is not the same as “excess confidence”.

Photo: deathandgravity

Translation: Ines Hercovich