I live a lot of my life online. Well, thats not true. I put a lot of what I am thinking online. My thoughts are shaped by three things: My life, my mood and my faith.

Lets take these out of order.

First my mood.

I am living with bipolar disorder II. I am taking two drugs, Seroquel and Trileptal that seem to be really making it easier to have stable moods. Pretty rad.

Second my life.

I do business development for a company called Lijit. I date (lately more frequently, but its something I certainly dont write specifics about. There is another person involved more often than not, so it just doesnt seem right.) I do the proverbial “hang out with friends” and spend a significant time with my two dogs, Billie and Taylor. (I do spend time with my three cats, Calin, Winston and Max, but they are cats. They are less needy.)

Third is my faith.

Its easy to say that being Jewish shapes a lot of what I do, but thats not the faith I am speaking about. That faith is the simple faith in me.

A recent fortune cookie read:

Deep Faith Eliminates Fear.

For the first time in awhile, a fortune cookie made me think.

(The other fortune was pretty good too: Dont be discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. That one relates to my dating life and my business philosophy. Perhaps I will write about that another day…)

One characteristic that is often associated with me, and many entrepreneurs, is risk taking. Its one of the characteristics that I have a hard time understanding.

Here are some of my responses to “risks” I have taken:

“So, I quit my job to start a company. It wasnt like the company was going to fail.”

“So, we were competing against several huge agencies for the deal. Is wasnt like we werent going to get it.”

“So, you walked away from a high paying job to work at a startup. It not like that startup wont be an amazing success.”

“So, you moved to DC after college with $300 and a place to stay for two months. Its not like I wasnt going to find a job and be successful.”

The list goes on.

I never see anything that I do that can be considered “risky,” because the deep faith I have in myself eliminates the fear of failure.

Read that again.

Apply it to other entrepreneurs you know.

The truth is that successful entreprenuers have a deep (not blind) faith in their own abilities to succeed. They understand their shortcomings. They know what holes they need to fill, and the types of people they need around them to be successful.

They dont take risks, becuase the outcomes are measured against the faith they have in themselves.

True entrepreneurs eliminate the reason for failure on external sources (the market, the community, the economy, whatever) and own their own failures as much as they own their own successes, because they know, their actions (or lack thereof) are solely responsible for the outcome.

Thats why there are so few real entreprenuers.

Most people are willing to take a contained risk by put up a site, write a business plan, even raise money.

But most are unwilling to jump off the cliff with only deep faith in themselves to eliminate the fear of the outcome.

If you consider yourself an entrepreneur, ask yourself this one question:

“Above all else, who do I have ultimate faith to get the job done, to make the right decision, to do the difficult things?”

What did you answer? I know mine.