I Don’t Want Any “Sheep” Getting Their Hands On This!

When you were a kid, I bet you didn’t know what risk taking meant, did you?

If your childhood was anything like mine, you probably got hit by a car or two (or eight, like in my case). You probably ate lead paint chips off the wall (not kidding) and truly knew what a mud-pie tasted like (worms and all) but as time passed and you grew older, I bet you were slowly introduced to self-doubt and taught the notion of risk by chicken-shits who were too afraid to live life to the fullest (or make anything out of their selves). Soon enough, you more than likely stopped taking risks and conformed to society’s rules (sad, sad story. No I’m not crying. I’m cutting onions).

Now that you’ve got a few years on you now, you’ve gained the “ability” of thinking of all the consequences for your actions, right? Well, sometimes that’s kind of a good thing (I’ll give it to those chicken-shits, but that’s all I’m giving them) because if you don’t think before you leap out of a plane you might get stuck with an inoperable parachute (and that’s never a good thing). All I’m saying about taking risk is this (it’s actually very simple): know when to jump and for Pete’s sake stop putting a label on everything!

For starters, we need to change the label we placed on risk — stop thinking of it as a do-or-die situation. That’s what most people mistakenly label it as: a choice that only has two outcomes, either success or failure! The sky, to these guys, will have fallen if they don’t succeed, and they’ll never be able to bounce back from the horrible pain failure sometimes causes. It’s precisely this same mentality that prevents people from taking any risks in the first place. Imagine this for a second: the forest definitely goes way beyond the trees — who knew?! Risk is never about looking at one tree for answers. It’s about exploring an entire forest for results.

Be honest with yourself … are you afraid to launch your own business? Most people are! Is losing the money you have saved for so long stopping you? If so, let me ask you this then: Why? Seriously! Sure, maybe you’ll lose all the cash you have now and become completely broke. This happens with risk! Then again, weren’t you completely “broke” when you were born? Plus, back then you didn’t have any experience, or know anything at all. Yet, you seemed to have turned out just fine so far (right?). You have whatever money you saved in the bank, an interesting life, and plenty of stories to tell. Now, if you weren’t afraid of being broke back then, why are you so afraid of being broke now?

If you plan on working all your life, stop here! If not, read on … Ok, still here? Good, because the people who stopped up there never take any risk in life — they’ll never have much of a career, because they’ll always be making money for someone else besides themselves. They risk never making it big, or getting all the things they want out of life. They risk sacrificing the glory they could have had and will continue on living a very mediocre, uninspired life. On the other hand, if you, as a risk taker, lean towards starting your own business (while working for someone else in the beginning) you’ll be risking your chance at a probably mediocre life, in exchange for the chance to get everything you’ve ever wanted out of it.

So do you want to truly live or truly die? If you’re not going after things in life, then it wouldn’t be that much different from being dead (harsh reality, I know). You life will not make much of an impact to others, and no one will remember you when you’re gone (this is sad, but very, very true)! You see, the option to take a risk is basically a freedom of choice: when there’s no risk involved, there’s not as much freedom either. Whenever you make a major choice in life, there needs to be a risk of missing out on the other choice that makes the choice itself worthwhile! So use your freedom and pick the life you want (I happen to want to be a multi-gazillionaire [LOL. OK, I’ll settle for a famous writer] but if you want to lead a more normal life, you can always take a risk by chasing smaller goals).

No matter what the situation is though, if you don’t at least try, you have absolutely no chance of succeeding! Most of the time, in life, there is only a very small penalty for failure anyway, so I say this now: if you want to open an eBay store to sell you own homemade candles, go for it! Why not, at least, give it a chance for success (and then tell your boss to “take this job and shove it” [after you start raking it in, of course])?