It’s easy to find faults in an idea. You will find them, your family and friends will find them, and if you have a blog, complete strangers will find them for you. For each idea, there are easily hundreds of reasons that they will fail. Worst yet, these faults will arise often well after you are underway with a project. After you start something, you will be given hundreds of opportunities to back out and quit.

So now what? Should you sit and wait for the perfect idea? No, you can’t. If you hold off investing yourself until the “right” opportunity comes along, you will be stymied forever.

So what’s the solution dad?

They key to overcome this negativity is to early on accept that failure is acceptable. It’s perfectly ok to try something out and see if it works. Even if you decide that the idea isn’t viable, I can guarantee that you will not have wasted your time. You will have at least earned knowledge and strength from the experience.

The only real way you can fail is if you don’t give yourself and your ideas the respect and trust required to give them an honest effort.

When he was younger, my father ran a vending machine business. He had handful of smaller machines that he purchased, stocked and maintained. Sadly, the business only lasted a few months. The reasons it failed were pretty obvious (especially in hindsight), but I admire the fact that he took the risk. Way to go dad!

I found out about my dad’s ill-fated business from my mom. It was interesting hearing it from her point-of-view. She described it as a total and utter failure. While I totally understand her point-of-view, it also reinforced my opinion of how important it is to have a supportive relationship with your spouse. I wonder how things would have turned out had she been more optimistic?

Nah, it still would have bombed However, I bet he would have been much more apt to try another idea later on, and who knows, he even might have found success.