En Avant - Get going!
This blog is named En Avant, after the personal motto of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the 19th-century engineer (and my personal hero). En avant is a French phrase with several meanings, including Charge! and Forward pass, as I learnt in France recently. In Brunel’s case, it meant Get going!
In an article urging people to “Just do it,” Jamie Quint wrote that,”Rarely do people regret things they did in life more than things they wished they had done.
I can relate to that. Apart from remorse for unintentional hurt I have caused to others, my regrets are never about wrong decisions, or things that didn’t work out, or investments that bombed. That might sound like chutzpah to some, but you need a little to have the confidence to make decisions quickly. No, my regrets are about things I didn’t try. Mind you, I don’t dwell on them - what’s the point?
When things go pear-shaped, and they will sometimes, it’s easy to get demoralised by the stress and tension of the situation, but in the grand scheme of things, “This too shall pass“. Life goes on, and you’ll have learnt from the experience.
By all means identify and manage your risks, but don’t be paralysed by them. If you’ve got an idea or a dream, En avant - get going!
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November 19th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
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April 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 am
[…] stumble or even fail. It’s a risk of which every real entrepreneur is acutely aware. As I’ve written before: “By all means identify and manage your risks, but don’t be paralysed by them. If you’ve […]