In 1933, in his inaugural address after defeating Herbert Hoover for the Presidency of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt told us that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

His words referred to the Great Depression that shrouded the nation with hesitancy, but his meaning echoes through the decades as a call for wisdom in the conquering of the single most common obstacle to success and happiness, especially when it comes to launching a home based business: fear, and it's primary source, ourselves.

Correct, all too regularly we jump in with a fantastic product and a well researched plan of action, but the ship eventually sinks thanks to the person manning the crows nest allowing the enemy of fear to guide us into the rocks.

Fear is part instinct - we are bred to recognize and respond to perceived danger - and part the product of our own life experience. When you step off the curb in front of a bus and a bolt of adrenaline shoots you across the street faster than an Olympic sprinter, that's instinct.

If a business opportunity eludes you due to your own hesitation or you simply didn't want to squander your precious funding, you're caving in to the assassin of success - your inherent fear. The good news is that you can do something about it, and it begins by recognizing what forms these home based business deal killers often assume.

Ask a successful person in any business, and they'll tell you that fear really is the enemy of success. And because fear is easily disguised as something more digestible to our self-image - there are five faces of fear, in fact, all thinly veiled versions of the same thing - we don't recognize the enemy for what it is.

The first step toward success resides in the act of recognition, and the next is the stepping into the fear itself through the making of an informed decision that is fueled by awareness and informed courage.

> Indifference: One of the five primary ways in which fear rears its head is through indifference. This is when you simply aren't in the game at all; you've submitted yourself to the dodging of risk-taking by turning away.

> Indecision: Indifference differs from indecision - the second of the five faces of fear - because with indecision you are looking into the eyes of opportunity but are frozen with - you guessed it - fear.

> Doubt, Worry and Over-Caution: The next two faces of fear are also synonymously linked: doubt and worry.

Doubt can be classified as the over-emphasis of the possibility of an unhappy ending. For some people, a five percent chance of failure constitutes enough doubt to stay on the sidelines. They overvalue the likelihood of failure over the much more likely chance of success.

Worry, on the other hand, is what opens the door to doubt. Most ventures entail some level of risk, including a home based business, so by definition there is a "chance" of failure.

When you worry about that chance to excess, you begin to doubt the probability that you will succeed, and suddenly you are frozen with indecision and over-caution (the fifth mask of fear), which is the tendency to choose from fear repeatedly through surrender to worry and doubt.

These five faces of fear - indifference, indecision, doubt, worry and over-caution - are separated only by matters of degree and nuance. They are at once sequential - one leading toward the next - and synonymous, and they are empowered only to the extent they conquer reason and solid planning.

Once recognized as something that is skewing your judgment, you take their power away and allow your better business instincts to prevail.

When you step into your fear, be on the lookout for these five seductive doors, all of which inevitably lead to failure, and all of which can be slammed shut before they turn your dream, as a home based business entrepreneur, into a nightmare.

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