Risk Taking: The Easiest Route To Success

Taking risk is good business if you ask me. It may necessary not come easy on the eyes but it's always worthwhile. Irrespective of whatever risk you're taking, a big career, business, academics, personal growth or relationship decision, there will always be two positive outcome. You either succeed or fail! Truth be told, you have a greater chance of failing than succeeding.

In fact, the ratio of success to failure in a previously untested project or goal is 2 : 10. That's the plain truth. Nothing great comes easy. Nothing ventured, nothing gained (or lost). 

 

It's quite disheartening whenever I see or hear people quit their long term goals because of the risk of failing involved. They don't even bug about the chances of being successful. Once they do their feasibility study, and the SWOT analysis is not smiling, that's the end of Solomon Grundy. "Off you go into the trash bin, they'd say". 

So many business idea, potential world changing decisions have been trashed because of the inability of the conceived of the idea so see beyond the bold failure written over the idea or plan. They do not bother to unmask the failure and work with the little chance(s) of success.

Margie Warrel wrote in her article for Forbes, Take A Risk: The Odds Are Better Than You Think - Often we know what it is we want to do, but we still don’t do it. Why? Because we are innately risk averse and afraid of putting our vulnerability on the line. The status quo, while not particularly fulfilling, can seem like an easier, softer, less scary, option.  Indeed, advances in brain imaging technology can now verify that we human beings are wired to be risk averse. In other words, we find it much easier to settle with the status quo, keep our mouths closed and our heads down rather than make a change, take a chance,  or speak up and engage in what i call a 'courageous conversation.

Show me a successful man in any spectra of life and I will show you the man that has failed and taken crazy risks never imagined!

So one day, two seeds lay side by side in the fertile spring soil. The first seed said, "I want to grow! I want to send my roots deep into the soil beneath me, and thrust my sprouts through the earth's crust above me.... I want to unfairly my tender buds like banners to announce the arrival of spring. ... I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the blessing of the morning dew on my petals!"

And so she grew. The second seed said, "I am afraid. If I send my roots into the ground below, I don't know what I will encounter in the dark. If I push my way through the hard soil above me I may damage my delicate sprouts ... what if I let my buds open and a snail tries to eat them? And if I were to open my blossoms, a small child may pull me from the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it is safe."

And so she waited. A yard hen scratching around in the early spring ground for food found the waiting seed and promptly ate it.

Moral of the story: Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life.

Most people tend not to take risk because they over-estimate the probability of something going wrong. As Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow. - when assessing risk, potential losses tend to loom larger than potential gains. That is, we tend to focus more on what might go wrong – what we might lose or sacrifice – than what might go right. Because what we focus on tends to magnify in our imaginations, it causes us to misjudge (and over-estimate) the likelihood of it occurring. Yet the reality is that the risk of something not working out is often not near as high as we estimate and the odds of it working out well, are often far better.

Risk takers don't hold onto the hand brake forever. It is understandable that one has to exercise caution but too much of it will eventually see you lose momentum, consistency, focus then you lose out or at worst watch someone else do what you've failed to do.

We will draw the curtains here today. Join us next time as we look into the 7 Effortless Ways That Guarantees Success With Minimal Risk.