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Issue 6 > Entrepreneurship: what to do when you're scared sh*tless.

Entrepreneurship: what to do when you're scared sh*tless.

Naomi Dunford makes the case for 'acknowledge your fear'.

Somebody (Tim Ferris? Gandhi? Princess Di?) once said that if you're not offending anybody, you're doing it wrong. You'll be happy to know, I'm clearly doing it right.

When I clicked 'publish' on 'Are you cocky or do you have balls?', I can honestly say I didn't know people would be so bothered. I soon had snarky emails in my inbox.

Seriously, people were mad. Really mad. People were mad at my word use, people were mad that I called them cocky, people did not dig it. (For those of you who did like it and commented, thank you. That was very nice of you.)

Anyway, somebody else (Chuck Norris? Paris Hilton? The 'Will It Blend' guy?) said this (and I think you'll agree that it deserves some emphasis):

The absence of fear is not courage.

The absence of fear is mental illness.

When I got those emails, I was not exactly delighted. (OK, the exhibitionist part of me was a little bit delighted.) Am I afraid that no-one will come to my site? That people will stop coming? That I won't meet the goals I've stated quite publicly to people I don't like and who will gleefully revel in my failure?

Of course I am. But I can't let that water me down. I can't let that fear dominate my actions. I can't let myself become one of those writers who just rehashes everybody else's crap. I have to hang out, being afraid, and going about my business anyway.

I'd love to make this into a handy bulleted list with lots of outgoing link-love. Then everyone could bookmark it and Stumble it and Digg it and I could be the linkbait queen of the world. Sadly, I can't.

I can tell you what I know about fear, though. It sucks. A lot. It can paralyze you and sicken you and leave you cold and lonely. I got pregnant at 17 with a man who wasn't exactly my soulmate. I dropped out of college and people told me I would never make anything of myself. I have been on welfare. And I run my own home business. This is scary shit, people.

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