Today I decided to share a post from my friend Detavio’s blog. He has an amazing website and great commentary on brand building (personal and professional). You can visit it here: http://detavio.com. The topic is personal risk and it’s top of mind after having brunch with some classmates. One asked, “Would you recommend that everyone took time off from work like you did?” Myself and another person there had both taken 8 to 12 months after leaving a job. We both traveled, pursue new interests and shared the sentiment that it was one of the best things we’d ever done. This is not to say it’s for everyone, but it did involve taking a big risk and that is something we all need to explore. Detavio’s post provides a prospective on how to make the process less scary and minimize the potential downside. Enjoy!
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what are you doing with your risk? by detavio samuels
our fear of taking risks is a killer. it kills dreams. it kills hopes. it kills expectations. and, ultimately, it kills true happiness. so here’s another post on why you should learn to love to take risks, right? wrong. the answer does not lie in learning to love risk but rather in changing what we do with the identified risks instead. what do i mean? our typical thought process probably goes something like this:
- step 1: dream/imagine/hope/believe
- step 2: contemplate the risk associated with those dreams
- step 3: eliminate the dream because it’s too risky
in this case, “what we do” with risk is use it as a reason not to pursue our dreams (find true love, start your own company, write a book, etc). but what if you do something different with the risk you uncover? what if, instead of using risk to eliminate the dream, you eliminate risk in order to accomplish the dream. our revised process would look something like this:
- step 1: dream
- step 2: contemplate the risk associated with those dreams
- step 3: eliminate the major risks that will prevent the dream from becoming a reality
what does eliminating risk while keeping the dream look like? it’s the philosophy behind most entrepreneurs; it’s what they focus on everyday when they go into the office. it’s what phillipe petit did when he perfected his craft over the course of decades before he chose to walk a tight rope from one twin tower to the other. it’s what tiger woods, michael jordon, lebron james and any other superstar athlete you can name does when they practice the same shot over and over again until it becomes automatic.
the truth is, very few people love risk and you don’t have to be one of the few. the secret is in focusing on ways to eliminate risk that could stand in your way. what things are you doing today to eliminate potential risk involved with pursuing your dreams? are you getting that degree? are you meeting with the right people? are you saving money so that you can survive for a year without pay?
Detavio Samuels
http://detavio.com
Please don’t forget to vote for him in this blogger contest. He’s in the running to below the “Good Mood” blogger for Sam-E : http://www.sam-e.com/job/profile/94