Yes, what is your excuse? Why didn’t you start that company yet? Very busy? Lack of money? Nonsense! Stop looking for excuses and get your a** moved!

I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot during this time, especially on the internet, where a bunch of so called “experts” claim that if you haven’t started your business yet it is because you’re looking for excuses instead of looking for clients.

There are two things of this statement that I’d like to debate. It can be true that many people don’t start their business or invest because they are afraid that things don’t go as expected and that they may fail. In fact, and contrary to what many “experts” advocate, it is believed that sometimes procrastination can have more to do with fear of failure than laziness.

On the other hand, there are people who are in truly complicated situations. For example, if you’re a single mom with two kids, a poorly paid job, struggling to pay the bills, with very low saving capacity, and somebody else comes to you saying you didn’t start a business because you’re looking for excuses, that person can go back to where they came from. Unless somebody else helps you out either with money or time, or both, it’s perfectly understandable and respectable that a person isn’t starting a business because she or he is prioritising their family and own well-being. Blaming them directly for their situation is, in my view, disrespectful.

What is your situation? You only know what you’re going through at the moment and nobody can judge you for that. Other experts, (this time without the ‘’), would recommend you to sort out your situation first and educate yourself in financial literacy,, but making sure you have an emergency fund, taking risks gradually, and not invest what you can’t afford to lose (or start a business that if it fails, you can’t afford the loss), which is a much more rational approach.

With this I want to tell you that, if your circumstances don’t allow you to start a business, you’re not a coward. People talk too much these days without trying to understand others’ situation. We live in a society where it is believed that everything that happens to you have often more to do with your mindset than with everything that happens around you. Recently, a well-known Spanish psychiatrist was criticised by other mental health professionals because she claimed that most things are within your control. Other mental health professionals mocked her statement by saying “Of course, if I have a badly paid job and half of it goes to pay the rent, I have depression because of my attitude”.

In business, something similar could be said as “Of course, if I start a business and I don’t have a main source of income and I can’t afford the rent, then if I decide to prioritise food on the table, that makes me a coward”. Or as some people would say in both real life and on the internet, “What is your excuse?”. Coming back to the example of the single mom with kids who can’t start a business, yes, I do also know single women who are raising a kid by themselves and they take risks to get what they want, which is both admirable and reckless. I also know people with resources who don’t want to start a business on the side, but who am I to judge?

We have to learn how to respect people’s choices without making them feel bad or inferior. The only thing we can do is help and give advice when asked (something I need to learn as well) and be realistic and understand that changes require internal work, through therapy if needed, and try to change your external circumstances.

Building a business is, in the end, a personal choice, as equally respectable as working for somebody else. Everyone has to choose what best suits their needs and desires, and the rest, we can just wish them to succeed.