“Only 5% of blacks are self-employed.”
I remember reading this somewhere on Facebook while randomly scrolling. And it struck me as a question, “Why?”. Why only 5%? Why do black-owned companies tend to be smaller?
I lingered over my questions for so long until I learned the answer from all the experiences my clients had shared with me. The reason why there are fewer black business entrepreneurs is that most of us are driven by our fears.
Our fears have both positive and negative sides. And both affect your purpose as a black business owner. It is important for us to know these to be able to handle our fears better.
Positive Side of Your Business Fears
Fear is not always negative. By focusing on the positive aspects of your fear, you can actually make it more beneficial than being negatively affected by it. Maybe you’re wondering now, is there a positive side to fear? Is fear beneficial? Well, here are some ways fear will benefit you.
- Fear will push you to work harder. – Because of that fear of losing your business and not achieving your purpose, you will start to think of different ways to not let this fear actually happen.
- Fear will push you to educate yourself more. – It’ll make you want to learn more things in life to be able to achieve your purpose and overcome your fears in the line of business.
- Fear will make you see the flaws you need to improve in your business. – Because of fear, you’ll tend to notice more in your business, even the smallest things.
Negative Side of Business Fears
Fear is also not always positive. There will always be times where fear is more prevalent negatively. But this is up to you. It is up to you if you’ll let this negative side of fear affect your purpose as a business owner the most. So here are some signs that this is happening already.
- You don’t try new things anymore. – Because of your fear of change and fear of taking risks, you tend to be stagnant in your business already.
- You become a perfectionist. – Because of your fear of being wrong, you don’t want to make mistakes anymore. But little did you know that these mistakes are important in finding your purpose in business, because with this you’ll be able to know what you really want and need in your business.
- You already doubt yourself, leading to not reaching your purpose. – This is the effect of your fear of not being good enough. You doubt yourself already.
We already know both the positive and negative sides of business fears. If you notice that you are more affected by the negative aspects of it, there are two things you must always remember to do. The first is to keep your mind occupied by your purpose (as a business owner) rather than your fear. And lastly, if that doesn’t work, you should reach out to a mental health professional like us so we can help you with how you can manage your fears as a business owner.
Shirley Therapeutic and Consulting Services, LLC is a diverse therapy clinic that can meet the needs of anyone. If you’d like to talk about your mental health, feel free to message us here.
Reference:
https://hbr.org/2018/04/how-fear-helps-and-hurts-entrepreneurs
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324176
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/whats-holding-black-entrepreneurs-back
