One of my last favourite books I read recently was from Brene Brown: Daring Greatly. One important issue Brene highlights is that when we’re afraid, we prevent ourselves from accomplishing what we’re capable of.

If you think about social enterprises and social entrepreneurship, many of them go undiscovered ways. They try out new business models without knowing exactly if it will work. Often there is no predecessor from whom they can learn or take over valid concepts. So, becoming a social entrepreneur means also to go across the general risks and enter an unknown area.

Why social entrepreneurs accept a higher risk
Probably there are so many reasons as social entrepreneurs and their individual life that explain why they do what they do. However, what I noticed is that overcoming fears and perspective shifts often go hand in hand.
What social entrepreneurs often raise visible, is that disabilities can become huge advantages, obviously and commonly negative ‘things’ can change into very positive ones. Just, because perspectives have shifted.
This perspective shift applies to fears, as well. What would you do if you weren’t afraid, but from this negative ‘being afraid’ could grow a really positive change? I think social entrepreneurs show where this can lead to.

You want to know how they shift perspective?
What if you replace the wording ‘ fear’ with ‘excitement’? Instead of seeing fear as fear, you replace it with other more resourceful emotions such as faith, hope, passion, courage, and self-confidence.

Instead of fearing things be optimistic and believe in yourself that you could get through this.
Instead of fearing and closing eyes, ask yourself: What’s interesting about this situation? What could you accomplish, if things went well? What could be changed?
The mechanism of shifting perspective is always similar. You just ask different questions, which lead to different emotions and often different perception of the situation itself.

You may say, nevertheless you run a risk. Yes, that’s true. There are always risks. But we need to be vulnerable to change things. We need to be vulnerable to innovate.
And if we discover that our original plans about change will not work, then let’s change our minds and try in a different way.

That’s what social entrepreneurs do when they start and evolve their business. They just try and do. Managing risks. Overcoming fears.
Hey, social entrepreneurs out there: Thanks!