Emotions
Jake realized that unemployment is rife in his community and since most of the community consists of very poor people, he can make money from providing services for job seekers. He thought about setting up an email service, assisting with drafting professional CV’s and look for jobs for other people on the internet. It was clear that Jake would make buckets full of money. He had no competition and the market was in desperate need of the services he provided.
Jake became consumed by the prospect of serving the community and making a living from it. He imagined about teaching skills like PC training, teaching interviewing skills and he could expand by introducing small scale printing like business cards, flyers, photo printing, etc. The more he thought about it, the more ideas came to him, he thought that he had hit the jackpot and the only possible outcome would be the personal reward of making a success, serving his fellow man and great wealth.
Needless to say, he had everything well researched and planned meticulously, he did not want any mishaps. He rented a small space in a busy shopping mall…
The hype around a great idea can lead to your failure. Once emotions sweeps you away, you end up in a world of fantasy, nothing wrong with that, it is a really nice feeling, a feeling that you cherish, a feeling that allows you to feel like achievement. Honestly, a feeling like this is necessary to start off any decision or venture. When you are not feeling that exuberance of success you are already warned by your emotions to steer away from the decision, it will result in failure. When in doubt, heed the call, you might end up forcing success by arguing against your doubts. Arguing against yourself is the first warning signal of impending failure.
Fantasy
Over indulgence in a feeling of success may cloud your reality because the fantasy world takes over from reality. The ideal would be that fantasy and reality balance each other out, which means that you are not only winning inside your head but the action you take to accomplish success leads to positive outcomes.
Jake had this overwhelming feeling that his choices and decisions are correct. His friends and family was in ecstasy about his great idea. They confirmed his belief. Everybody believed that this service should have been rendered years ago. Most people expressed their gratitude and promised their support. However, Jake’s fantasy world took over, he believed that if you can imagine it, you can achieve it. Anything is possible if you applied your mind to it.
He realized that there were no coffee shops in the mall, also a first in this community. He cannot fail because winter is extremely cold and patrons will buy coffee, especially premium coffees. Jake opened shop. He combined the coffee shop with an internet café with small scale printing on the side and to round it off, the job seeking agency, four shops in one.
The coffee shop never took off, he decided to run a marketing campaign and a competition for loyal coffee drinking customers, it had a temporary result, after the competition ended, coffee sales dropped again. This is a typical example of forcing success. Do not get me wrong, there are times when you do need to market your products or services, but when you try to force the market to buy, that is when you fail. The reality, the market was not conducive to coffee drinkers and nothing persuaded them to become customers although good quality coffee was sold at ridiculously low prices.
Then Jake introduced sandwiches, muffins and cakes to entice coffee drinkers, because there was no bakery in the vicinity, also another first for this community. Again he failed to sell more coffee. He then introduced tarts and other puddings and he got the same result. Then Jake tried take away foods like fried chicken and fries, it started off great, but again the market slowed and it failed.
How not to fall into the fantasy trap.
In your fantasy world, you are the director of your own thoughts and imagination, it happens so unnoticed that you start to “see and feel” success. That feeling is like an all consuming drug, you get addicted and you start to like the “feeling” and you cannot see the damage it is causing.
When you see your dream and the happy outcome in your mind, sit back and come down to earth and see what is real. Jake ended up with various loans to support the growth of his business and when he could not get loans he sold his car, driven by his fantasy that success is just around the corner. That “feeling” of success urges you to push on, now and again you do see your plans come together and you become more happy and you convince yourself that you are on the right track.
Jake never allowed his common sense to lead him, the force of the emotions (that nice feeling of success) from his imagination were too strong. A couple of times during the month, a soccer team from another city came to play in his community visited his shop and he would make a lot of money for the day and that would inspire him to keep on building on his “success”. When his business fell apart he could not see it happening because he was living in the feeling of achievement and success, in the meantime he argued with himself that success is close by and he convinced himself of this lie.
Naturally life wakes you up and hits you hard, reality struck, Jake never ran a business, he was living out his fantasies, but fantasies does not bring in the money. It became so worse that there were no more food for the table, he had to borrow constantly and when it was time to repay, he had to postpone loan payments, he could not buy stock, his daily income were split between food for the day, rent, stock and daily living expenses. The income from the business was never enough. The only solution was to close shop, the shops’ running expenses became more than the income.
Jake and his family consisting of a wife and two kids were forced to move in with family and he is now dependent on them with no future prospects of income. Jake considered suicide, but he does not want to leave his family defenseless against the cruel world.
Specialist Advice 