Risk: Why It’s Essential for Success
One of the most profound understandings that I have been blessed with from my 15 years as a serious student of leadership and success is that our potential is limitless. Anyone who chooses to study human potential to any degree will discover this incredible truth.
Every individual has been gifted with unique abilities in which to draw that unlimited potential into performance. Sadly, so very few of us choose to do so. It’s been said that many people possess a hundred acres of possibilities but keep only one acre under cultivation. Why? The primary reason is most people are unwilling to take what they perceive to be risks.
Taking risks is essential for success. It provides the birthing process for unexpressed potential. Success is a consequence of growth and growth is a consequence of risk. All growth occurs from the willingness to take risks, and yet, for most people, risk is something that is simply unpalatable.
It’s not as if I’m referring to the kind of risk that puts everything on the line (and that’s what the most highly successful people are willing to do by the way). I’m referring to how many people consider it a risk to do anything outside of the routine of mediocrity that is often referred to as a “comfort zone”, living out the same old daily/weekly/monthly activities, rarely, if ever, willing to even contemplate doing anything outside of that routine in order to help them achieve more in their personal and professional lives.
It’s the default setting of the masses, and there is nothing more limiting and detrimental to success in life.
It’s no exaggeration that most people tip-toe their way through life hoping to make it safely to death. In a recent study, fifty people over the age of ninety-five where asked “if you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?” The most common answer was “if I had the chance to do it all again, I would risk more”.
Risk and growth are the fast lanes on the highway leading to success. What evidence exists right now in your personal and professional life that indicates you are willing to take risks?
