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What do entrepreneurs know that no one else knows?

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This question originally appeared on Quora: What do entrepreneurs know that no one else knows?

Answer by Peter Baskerville, Wrote the Australian national qualification for Vocational Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship, teach it at Southbank Institute of Tech, on Quora,

Here are the things I have found to be true, but that my contemporaries in corporate, government and managerial-type jobs either didn't know about or chose not to believe:

* That you have nothing to lose and everything to gain:
My contemporaries actually believe the opposite to this, but only because they think that the accumulation of assets in the safest possible way is the highest goal in life. The truth is that if you fail as an entrepreneur, you can just start again, but with much more smarts and a whole lot more character, experience, and ability. You soon come to understand what Rudyard Kipling meant in the poem "IF" about succeeding in life when you can--"lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss" and "meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same." For the upside of entrepreneurship is to die for. Freedom, self-actualisation, life meaning and purpose, living a life of significance--so the rewards, either in 'Triumph or Disaster', far, far outweigh the risks.

* That failure is simply a process for learning and nothing more:
My contemporaries are fearful of failure perceiving it to be a significant blow to their status, ego, self-esteem and career prospects. The entrepreneur has no fear of failure because they understand it, control it and actually include it in the development of their business model. Entrepreneurs know that there is no learning from success. Only failure teaches, and the reality and truth that failure teaches can set you free and give you confidence and insights that alleviates all fear. Thomas J. Watson, the former president of IBM gave this advice for success: "Double your failure rate. It is a common mistake to think of failure as the enemy of success. Failure is a teacher--a harsh one, but the best. Pull your failures to pieces looking for the reason. Put failure to work for you."

* That happiness is best found in overcoming challenges:
My contemporaries believe that happiness is best found in boundless pleasure with the absence of stress but the entrepreneur knows that happiness is not pleasure--it's victory. It's found in overcoming challenges, of sometimes doing the impossible, of achieving way beyond what even they thought possible. The entrepreneur discovers happiness as Theodore Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena"--"who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat".

* That life is a (serious) game:
My contemporaries get all earnest about their responsibilities, their duty, their own importance, the seriousness of their labour and their indispensable position in the scheme of things. Entrepreneurs know the whole thing is a game. A serious game, but a game none the less. For the entrepreneur, life is not about existence for the sake of a maintained conformity, its about cheekily disrupting the status-quo, to build things of real-value for others. It's about winning in spite of their lack of resources, in spite of their dismissed status and in spite of their denied privileges. That's what makes the winning so much the sweeter. The entrepreneur is always in 'play mode' and looking to win against the odds because they know the whole charade is just a game anyway.

* That the regret of not doing is more soul-destroying than the failure from doing -
The entrepreneur knows that regret is much more closely related to the 'wish I had of' rather than the 'wish I hadn't'. They know that what we do and fail at is simply a different life experience but what we don't even attempt, becomes a failed life of regret. Older and wiser folk know that regret is the real cancer of old age. So to live life to the full, to not die with the song still in them, to be able to reflect on a fully invested life, to discover their full potential is what sometimes drives entrepreneurs over the edge but in equal measure it ensures that they never suffer from a life of regret that can so easily consume the life lived of least-resistance. It is the entrepreneur's lot to willingly grab the horns of life and shake hard rather than to cower is some dark corner, too afraid to even give life a chance.

This is what entrepreneurs know that others don't, and it is what drives their actions.

What do you think? Is this something you can benefit from or do you have a few tricks up your sleeve that are just as powerful? Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below. Don’t forget to hit the share button if you know others who will find this post useful.

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