Why 80 Percent of small business fail is the stupidest statistic ever.
There’s an obsession about relentless success. But you only need to be successful for a very short period to make it big.
People look at the amount of businesses that close after 1 year, 5 years, and then 10 years. Very few make it to 10 years…so that must be mean you shouldn’t do it since failure is so likely.
Who gives a crap about closing down after 5 years…when people got RICH in the first 3 years?!
RadioShack closed down in the past several years. Was the CEO a loser? Is he broke? No. Even businesses that fail often leave owners very well off financially.
People foolishly equate “failure” with “ending” and it’s screwing up your ability to assess risk horrifically.
This is different than people having stupid conditions to success, “Well, yea, he made a million trading dot com stocks, but how did he do in the last several years?” Who cares. He’s rich from trading dot coms and didn’t lose it all after things went bust.
This is a situation where the odds are stacked against you, like opening up a hedge fund trading dot coms in 2001 after the bust and then the hedge fund closing down in 5 years.
Idiots will say, “Course he closed down, what a loser he was to be trading dot coms in 2001!” But it’s wiser to wonder how much money was made in the years that fund was open.
This isn’t some motivational stuff to say “Find the silver lining! Your losses are just lessons as long as you don’t give up!” While that’s true, I’m saying that even the full outside failures and bankruptcies have piles of profits before it’s over.
The failures are blinding to people, because they don’t see the success that happened before the end.
Aside from money, even if you have a marriage that “fails” every 5 years because it ends, if you had the most passionate love-filled fun relationship in those 5 years before it ended, is it really a failure? If you think so, then you’re obsessed with the end. If you don’t think it’s a failure, you realize many good things can come through things that eventually fail.
Movie stars that can’t get roles acting anymore because of all their recent movie failures are still obscenely rich from their early success.
Nearly all businesses, empires, countries, and people fail on a long enough time line. And it’s time to realize that it doesn’t matter. Success is woven in the lines before failure.
Failure is real of course. But it’s probably not as common as you think. What businesses have you presumed were failures because they closed down but you didn’t realize the CEOs are all still rich? If they’re rich, most people wouldn’t regard them as a failure. People incorrectly presume businesses that go out of business have broke owners, and it’s not always the case.
How many divorcees / CEOs have you judged that actually had far better relationships / business than you prior to their divorce / bankruptcy?