We all have different tolerance levels of risk – some can’t bear to consider any of that “nonsense” while others apparently find her a close friend. I’m not sure where I stand but I have been generally classified as one who enjoys taking her out on dates.
I suppose that the scale of risk I take is, and will always be, normative to myself, just as it appears to you and yourself. I do not see risk as others see it as I do not you, which makes sense since qualifying someone else’s risk tolerance is far easier to do than self-diagnose.
You do what you do for whatever reasons you do it and I the same.
But there have been a few times where I can see my choices with slightly more clarity than usual. It has been rare but when it occurs it’s absolutely frightening. It’s as if you can see yourself from the outside looking in, watching yourself jump into the mist and even as you watch you wonder how and why you even came to those conclusions in the first place.
Risk is a powerful thing.
It causes you to do things you might not otherwise do, ever. It may cause people to react in ways that they may never have been able to do without your decision first. It may alter the course of your current trajectory in an incredibly positive way or may result in positively negative consequences.
But it forces us to respond – there is no alternative. I believe that leadership has a pleasant mix of risk management and luck, among many other qualities. It’s fascinating that we laud, respect, and attempt to copy those that we may deem successful, especially those that are able to somehow burst out of their once average lives and achieve greatness.
Oftentimes these individuals are no less capable of greatness than we are – what we lack and they have can be calculated only at a microscopic level. It’s neither a balance of risk and/or reward but rather the resolve to act in the face of boring mediocrity.
If you are not satisfied and do nothing then you shoulder all of the blame. We are now in week 3 of 2013 with only 49 left to go – are you still standing still?
I am not standing still and I’m definitely trying to be riskier this year. It’s funny though, what I’m doing doesn’t feel nearly as risky as I thought it might back when I was just dreaming about it
isn’t it odd how that works…?
Man this take me back to day long games of power tripping over the game of Risk especially since that old school pick of Risk! But I am for sure stepping out and wanting to risk a little more this 2013! I have nothing to lose and I keep saying I have to step out and make some changes for 2013! It’s time for more risk on my end!
so what’s it going to be this year? what project?
I have been a friend to risk many times, which I attribute to my Aquarian nature. It has not always served me well and I am still working toward success, but it’s certainly made my life an interesting experiment.
now isn’t this the truth?
what’s going on this year with you?
So many great things in this post. This is something my team and I faced when stepping directly from college graduation into the world of entrepreneurship. Our mantra from the beginning as been “burn the ship” – which comes from Cortez forcing his men to burn their ships once they arrived at a new place to remove any opportunity of retreat – forcing his men to respond because there truly was no alternative.
A quote that I heard while at Chick-fil-A Leadercast a couple years ago has been a wonderfully encouraging reminder: “Fear is okay – it’s complacency that will kill you”.
Great post – thanks!
i love the story of cortez. you can always build new ships as an entrepreneurial endeavor.
That last sentence was awesome, “If you are not satisfied and do nothing then you shoulder all of the blame. We are now in week 3 of 2013 with only 49 left to go – are you still standing still?”
Great challenge.
31… what’s that about?
In the bible, Joshua 12:24 recounts the life of Joshua and says that in all he defeated 31 kings. I was really struck by how incredible it was to have defeated 31 kings of 31 different kingdoms in one lifetime, all because he had a “different spirit”. The blog is named 31 Kings under the premise that if Joshua defeated 31 kings in his lifetime because he had a different spirit, how much could we accomplish if we had a different spirit as well?
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gracias por compartir