Why We Fear Failure When We Shouldn’t—And Why This Is a Death Knell for Entrepreneurship

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to exhibit at The Baby Show at Excel London, and whilst I found the experience enriching and well worth it, it wasn't without its hurdles for me on a personal level.

On the second day of The Baby Show, I found myself struggling. Foot traffic was steady, but the numbers weren’t translating into sales the way I’d hoped. I could feel myself spiralling. My ego got involved, and suddenly, it wasn’t just a slow sales day - it was personal.

For a moment, I believed I was failing. Worse, I believed I was the failure. As I put it to my executive coach, it felt like an existential crisis. Such catastrophic thinking! But how did I get there?

A good night’s sleep changed everything. With fresh perspective, I realised something critical: this was not personal. This was business. This was marketing. And I was not a marketing expert - I was a business owner who had something to learn.

When I reframed the “failure” of the previous day as a lesson rather than a personal attack, I could shift my approach entirely. Instead of trying to sell to every person walking past, I focused on connection. I smiled, I was inviting, and I engaged with those who were receptive - my true target audience if you will.

I led with the why of my business. I parked the hard sell and instead, when I sensed genuine interest, I invited people to sign up for our newsletter - so I could continue the conversation beyond those fleeting two minutes at the event.

When failure was no longer the focus, I felt empowered to pivot, to strategise, and to do what I do best: identify the best course of action to achieve my goals. My mistake had been assuming the entire conversion journey had to happen in those two minutes. It didn’t. My job was to plant the seed and nurture it over time.

The Lessons We’ve Learned About Failure

Many of us have been conditioned to see failure as catastrophic. But is it really? Or is it just part of the learning process?

For those who excel, failure often carries an outsized weight. If you’ve built your identity around getting it right, where exactly does failure fit? If you’ve always been the one who succeeds, what happens when you don’t?

I’ve thought a lot about this in the context of university. If you were a scholarship student, like I was, failure wasn’t just an academic hurdle - it could mean losing funding, losing support, losing the belief of those who had invested in you.

That’s a lot to put on one exam. And yet, many of us internalised that pressure. We carried it into adulthood, into our careers, into our businesses. But should we have?

Why Entrepreneurs Must Be Allowed to Fail

Adrian Gore, founder of Discovery, famously said: “We have to be allowed to fail.”

Because in business, failure is not a signal to stop - it is proof that you’re in motion. If we treat every setback as confirmation that we are not good enough, we will never take the kind of risks that true success demands.

Maybe the real issue isn’t failure itself, but what we’ve been taught it represents. Maybe failure isn’t about loss at all - but about learning, refining, and recalibrating.

I’d love to hear from you - how has fear of failure shaped your decisions? Have you ever held back from a business move, a career pivot, or a personal challenge because failure felt too costly?

Let’s open up the conversation. Because if we’re going to build, innovate, and take bold steps forward - we have to redefine what failure really means.