During this past week I had the opportunity to talk to a women who has been involved in a variety of entrepreneurial projects over the past few years including:

-Starting an online ecommerce venture.
-Buying a closed hotel/restaurant and putting it back into operation.
-Sitting on a loan fund that helps entrepreneurs get funding.

And now she has just closed a deal to buy $1.5 million dollars worth of property near an interstate exit in the hope of developing the property into a variety of retail storefronts.

You might be thinking, "Sure, another one of those people that has the courage to do they want and whatever they touch turns to gold".

Well it's not quite that simple. I had to meet with her in order to get her help to put on a 7-week entrepreneurial course I teach.

Over the course of the conversation we talked about her different projects and her dreams for the future. She confided in me that while things were good--problems are always creeping up like employees that don't show up for work or customers that defraud them. Not too mention the dealings with the many government agencies she's forced to work with. The headaches are always there and she just deals with them. Headaches are part of the entrepreneurial landscape.

I asked her how she manages to keep going forward regardless of the obstacles and the risks involved. She answered honestly, "I'm usually scared to death, I quake in my shoes but once I get started it gets easy, the start is always scary for me. That hasn't changed from doing small deals to million dollar deals. The fear is always there but I just start doing it."

How often have you heard or read or talked to someone that won't get started because of the fear? They're waiting for that one last piece of information to give them the self confidence they need to get a project going--unfortunately there just isn't any information out there that will remove the fear. I think fear and the entrepreneurial spirit go hand in hand.

Take care,

Mike Winicki