Probably the worst phobia entrepreneurs can suffer from is ‘fear of knowledge’
Epistemophobia, as it is clinically known sounds so ridiculous it’s hard to believe it exists. It does, and we all suffer from it to varying degrees. Sometimes we simply don’t want to change our world view.
As entrepreneurs we quickly learn that introducing something new to the world requires our audience to overcome their ‘fear of knowledge’. When people are comfortable in what they believe, they’d rather not know there’s a better way to do things, or a more logical thought pattern to embrace. Think about the PC and the years it took for it to penetrate households.
Like consumers, we entreopreneurs don’t like to acquire knowledge that contradicts our goals, methods or ambitions either. The trick is knowing whose turn it is to ignore the fear of knowledge; ours or the consumers.