When Risk is too Risky

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that (is) changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. — Mark Zuckerberg

When taking a risk is in itself too risky we are in a very bad place. Life is full of risk and there is no avoiding it. We take a risk every time we do something. It is a risk to get out of bed, we could fall and hit our head and suffer terrible injury. Equally, if we manage to get out of bed we could slip and fall in the shower, severely lacerate ourselves shaving, choke while brushing our teeth, trip while putting on our shoes, and so forth and this is all before breakfast.

We are surrounded by risk and it is just part of the human condition. There is a risk of a negative consequence around every thing we do. At any point something could go wrong and the consequences could range from inconsequential to terminal. There is no way to avoid things happening.

There is also equally a chance of a positive outcome from everything we do. We could wake up one morning to find that we have won the lottery, our terminal disease is in remission, our broken relationship has been mended, we are becoming more attractive as we age and our lost dog has returned home. These things can all happen as well and they are just as likely to happen as the bad things. Many good things happen to us every day, but we tend to worry about the bad things and forget about the good things. This is especially true if we are not moving toward excellence in our lives where we have an opportunistic outlook and see risk as a no-lose proposition.

Where we lose our way is when we can only focus on the negative outcomes and exaggerate the likelihood of them becoming our current reality. We then become engaged in a depressing spiral of looking for the bad because we are afraid of the bad and then become over sensitized to the unfortunate things that happen to us every day.

How many times have we commented that after someone points something out to us we see that very thing more often? Perhaps a unique model of car or something unique about a song or something similar. I certainly have noticed that once I am aware of a specific song I hear that song everywhere I go. The reality is that they are not playing that song because I am in the area, it is just that I have been sensitized to that song, and now I am more aware of it playing than I would have been previously.

Do you remember when you first learned to ride a bicycle or taught someone else to ride? I remember seeing a hole in the road as I was learning to ride and the more I focused on that hole, the more I steered my bicycle toward that hole and sure enough, eventually crashed as I drove into the hole. It was almost as if it had a magnetism to it that I could not escape. The reality was that there was over three feet of road on either side of the hole, but because I was so focused on the hole and what would happen if I fell in it, I ended up driving right into it.

It is much the same when we consider risk. If we are focused on the negative branch of what can happen, we will start to look for it and be more aware of it happening in the world around us which will further feed our fears. This cycle can build on itself to the point that we are convinced that bad things are happening to us and we are more likely to cause the negative thing to happen as we subconsciously draw nearer to it.

This can work to our favor just as easily. If we focus on the positive branch of a possible outcome, we will become more aware of it happening in the environment around us and we will start to draw nearer to the possibility that it will happen to us.

Risk is just part of our lives. There is no escaping it and it is not a bad thing. However, if we see risk as a bad thing, it often becomes our reality. We manage risk by placing ourselves in a no-lose situation such as by adopting a journey to excellence. When we embrace change and risk, and view it from the perspective that we are resilient enough to deal with the bad things that might happen and intelligent enough to learn from our experience then there is no way to lose. We set ourselves free from the bondage of worry about things we cannot control and find that the magnetism of the things that go right pulls us to a higher performance and level of satisfaction.

Here are a few suggestions for managing risk:

1) Make a plan and stick to it. Devote time to making a plan and then following through. Give ourselves the opportunity to consider what we are going to do and the time to think it through.

2) Plan a future but live in the present. Today is happening right now. Manage what we can today and reconsider the future with our next opportunity to plan. Put our full effort into what we can mange and let the rest take care of itself. We will fix tomorrow when we get there.

3) Manage our risk perspective. Make a list of the things that went right today and our accomplishments, no matter how small they seem. The magnetism of those positives will help us stay focused on the positive.

4) Learn from everything we do. If the worst case is that we learn something and the best case is that it goes the way we planned, we win either way. When there is no downside we have a completely different view of risk.

There is an element of risk in everything we do. It is up to us to keep our perspective positive and in check. Thank you for being part of our community, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on managing risk.

Thanks,

Skip Gilbert