Fear of failure stalks the world of the entrepreneur, from losing key clients to running out of money. For entrepreneurs, courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to persist in spite of it. These fears are well-founded: Studies suggest that roughly 75% of ventures fail within 10 years (see U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on firm survival rates here).
Even success can provoke anxiety. We asked Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish-born founder and CEO of the yogurt company Chobani, whether he was ever afraid while building his multibillion-dollar business. “Every day,” he replied, “because if I had failed, a lot of lives were going to be affected by it.”
