Opinions expressed by business partners are their own.
Key takeaways
- Most business struggles are not about skill. It’s about unfamiliar emotions. Experience matters, not because it makes you smarter, but because it makes you familiar with difficult situations.
- Emotional practice creates real confidence. Entrepreneurs must anticipate and mentally prepare for challenges before they occur in real time.
- Confidence comes from recognition. Founders who endure are not those who avoid suffering. They are the ones who have acted on emotions, practiced difficult moments and not confused emotions with danger.
Most of us grew up hearing the same phrase over and over again: Practice makes perfect.
You’ve heard it in sports, music lessons, school, and any activity that requires repetition. You weren’t expected to be good the first time. Or even a tenth. The hypothesis was simple: the more you practiced, the more familiar it became—and the better you performed under pressure.
What’s interesting is how that lesson completely disappears when we become entrepreneurs.
Suddenly, we expect ourselves to know how to handle things we’ve never experienced before. We are hard-wired to react emotionally to situations that we have never practiced. And we consider suffering a disqualification.
But the truth is: Most business struggles are not about skill. It’s about unfamiliar emotions.
Experience isn’t just knowledge—it’s emotional memory.
When people say someone is an “experiencer,” they’re rarely talking about intelligence. They are talking about exposure.
An experienced entrepreneur has:
Deals were seen collapsing.
Cash flow went through stress.
There is a public misunderstanding.
The flop was launched.
Made decisions that have been damaged by age.
Carried responsibility for longer than felt comfortable
What looks like confidence on the outside is often something more sobering: recognition.
They have felt this before. Their nervous system knows the territory.
That is why experience is so important. Not because it makes you smarter – but because it creates situations. Familiar.
Why “Practice Makes Perfect” Worked So Well
As kids, practice wasn’t just about perfecting technique. It was about training our relationship to suffer.
When you practice piano or play games, you learn:
Eventually, these feelings stopped being dangerous. You didn’t quit because your fingers hurt or you missed a shot. You expected it.
This hope brought peace.
Entrepreneurship, however, throws people into a highly emotional environment without much practice. And then we wonder why founders burn out, freeze out, or self-sabotage when the going gets tough.
The Missing Skill: Emotional Practice
We prepare for meetings.
We are preparing for the launches.
We are ready for strategy.
But we rarely prepare for how things turn out. felt.
And that’s where emotional practice comes in.
Joe Dispenza has discussed extensively the idea that the mind and body do not clearly distinguish between real experiences and vividly imagined experiences. When we repeatedly imagine a situation in emotional detail, we begin to train our nervous system to recognize it rather than as threatening.
This is not abstract neuroscience. This is operant conditioning.
And once you see it, it shows up everywhere.
Learning from the world’s toughest climbs
I was reminded of this concept recently when I watched Alex Honnold’s brutal ascent of Taipei 101.
What stood out was not just the physical preparation. He also talked about mental preparation.
Before climbing, he practiced obsessively:
How his muscles must be burning.
How will his breathing change?
When his mind wants to leave.
What fear will feel like mid-climb.
When he was actually climbing, nothing surprised him.
The pain wasn’t pleasant—but it was familiar.
And familiarity governs generations.
Entrepreneurship is an emotional endurance game.
Entrepreneurship is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. This is near an unexpected climb where the terrain changes mid-climb.
At different stages, you experience completely new emotional experiences:
Liability shock when people depend on you for income.
Isolation of leadership when decisions cannot be crowdsourced.
Visibility risks as your brand grows
Pressure to succeed occurs when expectations rise faster than capacity.
None of these feelings mean anything is wrong. They mean something new.
The problem is when founders face these feelings. The first time In real time – with real results – and interpret them as failures.
Why is familiar pain easier than new pain?
Your nervous system is designed to protect you from novelty. It doesn’t matter whether something is objectively dangerous – only that it is unfamiliar.
Therefore:
First-time founders get nervous more easily.
New levels of success can feel unstable.
Growth can lead to anxiety rather than confidence.
Emotions themselves are not the problem. There is novelty.
When you’re already “there” emotionally—even in rehearsal—your body responds differently. Be present instead of reactive. You make decisions instead of freezing.
How entrepreneurs can practice before the moment arrives.
Emotional practice is not about avoiding difficulty. It’s about normalizing it. Here’s how founders can actually apply it:
1. Practice failure, not just success
Imagine how it feels when something doesn’t work. Sit with despair without a spiral. Practice staying grounded.
2. Practice being misunderstood.
Progress often means that people make assumptions about you. Practice the pain of not correcting the narrative—and survive anyway.
3. Prepare for the winning weight.
Success brings pressure, scrutiny and expectations. Many founders don’t realize how volatile growth can be until they’re in it.
4. Name emotions before they appear.
When you expect fear, it loses power. Anticipation turns panic into information.
5. Train your nervous system, not just your intellect
You don’t need more logic in difficult moments. You need emotional familiarity.
Why it creates real trust.
Confidence is not bravery. It’s not loud. It’s not pretending that things don’t affect you.
Real confidence comes from recognizing:
“I know that feeling.”
“I’ve survived this before.”
“I don’t need to escape this moment.”
This is what experience really gives you – not perfection, but stability.
Entrepreneurs who last.
Founders who endure are not those who avoid suffering. They are the ones who expect it.
They acted on emotions.
They rehearsed for difficult moments.
He did not confuse emotion with danger.
As we learned as kids: practice doesn’t make things hurt. It makes them familiar.
And in entrepreneurship, orientation is often the difference between panic and leadership.
Key takeaways
- Most business struggles are not about skill. It’s about unfamiliar emotions. Experience matters, not because it makes you smarter, but because it makes you familiar with difficult situations.
- Emotional practice creates real confidence. Entrepreneurs must anticipate and mentally prepare for challenges before they occur in real time.
- Confidence comes from recognition. Founders who endure are not those who avoid suffering. They are the ones who have acted on emotions, practiced difficult moments and not confused emotions with danger.
Most of us grew up hearing the same phrase over and over again: Practice makes perfect.
You’ve heard it in sports, music lessons, school, and any activity that requires repetition. You weren’t expected to be good the first time. Or even a tenth. The hypothesis was simple: the more you practiced, the more familiar it became—and the better you performed under pressure.
