To Anyone Who's Afraid to Take Another Risk
"By the time it’s risk free, it’s not an opportunity anymore"
The risk-free life is the worst life.
What’s taken me decades to realize is we default to the risk-free life by accident. We don’t even know we’re living one.
We delude ourselves into thinking we take risks when the truth is we don’t. It secretly sabotages everything you do and it’s crucial to fix right now.
You took a risk and it didn’t work out. Now what?
Sometimes sh*t blows up in your face.
In 2021, I had $1.2M stolen from me. I shouldn’t admit this but here goes…
The knife into the middle of my heart was that the police told me the cash likely went to Russian criminals who used it to fund the Ukraine war. I never feel good when I’m reminded of this. I try not to think about it.
For months after this event I didn’t want to take risks. What if it happened again? What if I invested in crypto once more and some other accident happened? Maybe my email accounts aren’t safe now? Maybe this Substack isn’t safe?
The mental illness this theft created was overwhelming. Then Tony Robbins reminded me of a useful analogy…
When my daughter was born she couldn’t crawl.
She tried to at 8 months but just couldn’t figure it out. We panicked because the doctors said it was taking too long.
So I just sat next to her every day and watched her try. I encouraged her. I had faith she would find a way. And eventually she did. When she tried to walk it was even harder. She kept falling over. It, again, took way too long.
But eventually she walked. After so much practice it happened. Not for a single second did I think to myself, “That’s it, no more, she will never walk so let’s stop trying.” Nope. We kept taking risks and watching her fall down.
Why is it when it comes to adulthood we don’t have the same mindset?
We fall down once and never get back up. A lady emailed me last week. “I did two other writing courses and they both were useless.” She didn’t want to try mine. She’d lost faith in writing after two attempts. That’s all it took.
If you take a risk and it doesn’t work out, you’re supposed to keep trying until it does.
“Our greatest weakness is losing heart, doubting ourselves, becoming unnecessarily cautious.
Being more careful is not what we need; that is just a screen for our fear of conflict and of making a mistake.”
(Robert Greene)
This quote hit me hard.
This week I found myself being unusually cautious. I got a big tax bill that wiped out most of the cash in my savings account. I haven’t seen the balance this low for a while.
It’s normally only temporary, and it’s only the business bank account, not my personal savings…but still…it affected me. A website bill made me think twice. A new software subscription forced me to hesitate.
For a few split seconds I began to doubt myself.
Then I read Robert’s quote. It reminded me that we become useless pieces of sh*t when we act out of fear and are too cautious. Nothing great in life happens without risks.
Not wanting risk is the biggest risk.Growth is the result of risk. Innovation happens from risk too.
When we feel overly cautious it’s a sign we are suffering from fear of failure, perfectionism, overthinking, procrastination, or the whole damn lot.
A quick way to test: how many risks did you take in the last 90 days?
A big moment of bravery doesn’t exist
This is the delusion.
It infects society like a Ch!nese bat virus from 2020. We tell ourselves there will be a right time to take a risk. Or there will be the right opportunity to take a risk on.
It’s a lie.
There isn’t a magical transformation waiting for you. And no one is coming to save you or be your free mentor. The path to success is a gradual one where you slowly get 1% better each day.
You take a small risk. Then another one. Then a bigger one. Before you know it, you’ve taken enough risks to quit your pain in the ass 9-5 and go all in on your true obsession. It’s only then that you truly live.
That’s what I’ve got to do for the last few years. I quit my job in 2021 and went on to do much bigger things. Not because I was special, but because I spent a decade in banking taking small risks every day outside of my job to test my potential.
What looked like a “screw you, I’m leaving banking forever” moment that happened in a single day was actually a decade in the making.
The tragedy is if I’d not been so cautious for that many years, I could’ve made the leap in a year or less. Don’t make the same mistake as me.
Take more risks today.
Don’t let the sharp pain you feel after taking a risk that didn’t work out make you forget the chronic pain you felt up until that point from not taking the risk – @thedulab
You must take risks before you’re ready
In this fast-paced world a huge mistake is to move slowly.
Yet that’s how the average person lives. They have no urgency. They wait years before taking the first step instead of taking a tiny step today.
They have the desire to get more out of life, but fear quietly holds them back. The solution is to take risks before you’re ready. Maybe your career or business is already good. That’s fine. But thanks to entropy, nothing stays the same.
You must embrace risks to experience growth before you need it.
Layoff culture is now deeply embedded in the business world more than ever before.
When businesses don’t know what to do, or when there’s a recession, or when a war breaks out, or revenue declines for a year…the first action businesses take is to lay people off.
There’s a whole consulting industry that exists to enter businesses and fire their employees. It’s a booming business because the consultants are disconnected from the outcome and the employees that must be fired.
All the consultants get are names, salaries, and job titles in a spreadsheet. Their job is to work out who to fire in the fastest time possible.
How do I know?
My friend does layoff consulting for a living. He’s never been busier. Employers just can’t wait to show people how disposable they are.
This reality isn’t a sad one. It’s a massive opportunity to take risks and stop thinking a job is safe. Businesses owners aren’t excluded either. If you run a business and don’t take enough risks, you risk becoming irrelevant.
“That’s the thing about opportunity.
It looks like risk when it’s an opportunity.
And by the time it’s risk free, it’s not an opportunity anymore” – Alex Hormozi
Final Thought
If you’re afraid to take another risk, it’s time to stop and think.
Feel the fear. Sit with it. Understand it’s normal. Then remind yourself that without risks all you have is an even bigger problem.
Risks = Growth
Start with small risks then increase your risk tolerance over time. That’s how you look like an overnight success.
Let me know in the comments below how you approach taking risks and why.
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