What are you reading? Right now, I am slowing making my way through The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. The book is great, by the way. Take a risk, go out, buy it, and read it now. You will be glad you did.
When I read, I use little flags to mark interesting passages. While reading, I came to this quote on page 68 by Ayn Rand,
“The question is not who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me”
That got me thinking about my business. Who is going to let me start a business? No one. Granted, I need to get my wife’s blessing before I get started on something that will affect our marriage and family life like starting a business, but no one will let me start a business. It is something I just have to do.
The risk in planning
I am naturally a planner. I agonized for months over starting a business. I wondered if I could make it work, if I was spending too much money to get started, if I knew enough, etc. In the end, I realized that no one could or would tell me that it would work or that it would not work. No one could tell me if I would be successful. No one could tell me the future. In the end, it was up to me to make the final decision and no matter how much planning I did, it was just a big unknown.
Over the past year or so, I have been taking more risks. I have heard advice over and over again that you should do something every day that scares you. I am living that advice as much as possible. We all need to take more risks. There is a fine line between reasonable risks and super-crazy risks but the ones I am talking about are mostly risks that involve getting out of my comfort zone. Staying the same is a risk. Changing is a risk. Starting a blog is a risk. Not starting a blog is a risk. You are taking more risks than you think, it all depends on your perspective.
The more risks you intentionally take, the better you become at judging the risk and taking advantage of them. Start small and build to bigger and better risks. Start a blog but don’t let anyone know. Once you are comfortable with that, take the risk and let friends and family know. Then let the world know through Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Google+, or any of a growing number of social sites.
Just take the risk. Jump out there and see what happens. You may get hurt, but imagine how that risk will change your story. Who knows, your risk may pay off and then, the sky is the limit.
Go do something risky…
Thanks for reading Is this what a risk looks like?. I would like to know what you think and get your feedback on this post, so please leave a comment. If you like the post, be a hero and share it with your Facebook friends. If you would like to stay up-to-date with new blog posts, subscribe to the RSS feed. Have a great day.
