Whenever we want to start something new – a project, a venture, a new friendship or anything significant, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. In fact for any new initiative to succeed there are lots of things that have to go right and a couple of things going wrong can make the whole initiative fail. So, if the possibility of failure is so high, should we try anything new at all?

I have seen so many people (including myself many times) putting off some key initiatives as the time may not be right or because of the fear that something could go wrong with their plan.

Now, whenever I am faced with such a dilemma, I have a rule to follow “You can’t lose what you don’t have.” Let me explain – let us say we need to make a cold call to a prospect. Right now, we don’t have that customer on our list. So, the first thing to know is whatever be the outcome, we are not losing this customer as he is not one right now. So, putting off making that phone call makes no sense as simply put – we have nothing to lose but everything to gain. Of course, you need to make a compelling offer that is relevant to the prospect to make him get interested but that is not the point here. The key is NOT to stop trying new things because of the fear of a perceived loss at a later time.

You can’t lose what you don’t have!