Most ventures involve some risk. This week someone pointed out to me a substantial risk with my latest scheme. I adjusted my plans and got some professional advice. It was clear that I could minimize the risk, but not eliminate it.
Compared to most of my family, friends and co-workers, I'm used to going out on a limb. I'll take an unpopular stance at work or in a civic setting. But this felt different, scarier. I guess because I was doing more than simply talking.
So I asked a few people, one person who had a slight interest in me proceeding and the other who was completely impartial. They both made suggestions to further minimize the risk and then said they thought I should go for it. I ran the overall idea by some friends in the relevant field. Whoa..... they cautionned. They didn't think it was a good idea at all.
I was torn. The idea of throwing out what I considered my best business idea to date made me sick. But what if they were right? I went through the worst case scenario in my mind. It was not good. But, I thought it was survivable. Painful, but survivable. I wondered whether I was still considering this from listening to Seth Godin's The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable. Was it a good thing necessarily to be so influenced by an audiobook?
The bottom line was I wanted to go for it, but needed to be sure that the risk wasn't going to cause problems at home. My husband also had suggestions for further minimizing the risk and supported me proceeding. Yeah! I'm going for it. I know it's not statistically valid, but it's interesting, it was 100% my female friends that urged me to play it safe and the men in my life that said "Go for it." Perhaps women in general are less comfortable with risk. I'll throw that out there for some sociologist.
Having gone to see Blades of Glory last night (very funny) I was thinking about figure skaters. Real figure skaters, not the fictional ones in Blades of Glory. For those that compete internationally, no matter how much they practice, they never hit all their jumps 100% in practice. They have to go out there and compete in front of a million people knowing they could literally fall on their ass and self-destruct. If they stick to jumps they know they can land, they will never achieve real success.
Bottom line. If you are going to ever climb up on the podium, you have to accept some risk and be willing to fail in a very big way. You shouldn't ignore risk, but on some level you have to be willing to accept it.
Wish me luck.
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