In business, being honest is crucial to everyone’s success and prosperity. Having the truths laid out in front of you can be incredibly disheartening, but it can also provide you with excellent insights, preparation, and ideas for furthering your business yourself.

Being honest with each other is the first step to being honest with ourselves, and to that end here are some hard but powerful truths about starting a business.

Crazy is Good

Risk-taking is one of the most important things that entrepreneurs can do. Risk is something most people tend to avoid, but without a healthy risk there isn’t much to be gained.

What’s more, many entrepreneurs aim for ‘market disruption’ – flipping the table of industry standards in order to form a new standard. A new standard that they will be the leaders of. These are crazy things to pursue, but they are the foundation of good entrepreneurship.

Your Chances are Bad

Nearly every trust-fund baby with half a clue will be trying to do the exact same things that you will be doing. But these kinds of established or well-funded entrepreneurs likely have less risk because of their positions.

This makes your chances far worse – you won’t have as many chances at success as many others. And there are many, MANY other entrepreneurs out there.

Embrace Failure

Success will take time and effort, as well as a few attempts. The likelihood of achieving success with your first business idea, no matter how much of a golden goose it seems, is incredibly slim.

Embrace the experience of watching a business fail, and learn everything you can as you go through it. Learning from failure, embracing it, is the most important trait of successful entrepreneurs.

Money Only Means So Much

Hitting it rich shouldn’t be your only goal in business. Ironically, if you pursue other things while being an entrepreneur, you might be more successful than if money was your only drive.

Being driven, motivated, and dedicated to your business is absolutely critical, and you should focus on developing other motivations – whether it’s the business itself, the people it supports, or having something that allows you to exercise your brain.