Risk Failure Instead of Safety
"There’s no such thing as a no-risk option.” My author said this on our call yesterday, almost as an afterthought. “Just getting into your car is a risk. You could be driving to Chick-fil-A and get killed in an accident. Or, maybe you never leave your house so you never get hit by a car. But guess what? A few weeks ago, just a couple blocks from my place, somebody was sitting inside their house and was killed when a car crashed into their living room. So, there’s always risk. We can’t escape it. But there are better risks than others.”
I hurriedly took notes, wondering where my author was going with this.
“The best risk is a calculated risk. You set your eyes on a goal, you know it’s risky, and because you’ve got your eyes wide open to the risk, you research the heck out of it. And, best case scenario, you succeed!” I nodded along, prompting him to continue.
“The second-best kind of risk is the one that ends in failure.”
I studied my author. “Really? That’s a tough sell.”
He grinned and waved his hand, as though batting away failure like a fly. “Everyone tries to avoid failure because it usually means losing money. But what do you gain? You gain experiences. You gain relationships. You gain skills. Even if you lose money, you still walk out pretty good because you’ve gained a lot. I’ve probably started around 15 businesses that didn’t make me any money. But I don’t consider those failures. I just got an outcome that was different than what I expected. One of those failures connected me with a guy I later partnered with to start up a new company. He’s become one of my best friends. And that side business is going to make us around 5 million this year. We met four or five failed businesses ago. Everyone’s afraid of failure. But the reality is, failure isn’t nearly as bad as the third level of risk: mediocrity.”
At this, I straightened up. Had my author been reading my journal? Did he have any idea how much I needed to hear this right now?
“Mediocrity is the second-to-WORST kind of risk. Because when you’re living in mediocrity, you have something that’s not bad enough to fail, but it’s not good enough to be great. It’s not doing amazing things. But the reason mediocrity is worse than failure is because mediocrity robs you of your most precious resource: your TIME. In the instance of failure, you still get the lessons out of it, and then you move on to something else. But you could stay in a mediocre job for thirty years and never advance. Mediocrity is worse than failure, if you ask me.”
His simple, matter-of-fact words stunned me. His compelling truth suddenly shone a spot light on the professional paths I’ve been sweating over for the last several weeks: one, a calculated risk that could end in failure. The other: a familiar, reassuring path—but one that would not require any new growth, vision, or ideas. One that would take up much of my time and—perhaps—mean choosing mediocrity. “You said it was the second to worst,” I prompted him. “What’s the worst?”
“Safety,” he said. A bomb went off in my brain. “The worst level of risk is playing it safe. Because when you try to avoid all risk, you can never advance. If you’re never willing to risk a single dollar, or risk hiring someone and putting your trust in somebody else, or if you’re never willing to risk investing in your marketing—now you’re putting your dreams at risk. You’re putting your FUTURE SELF at risk, because you’re not daring to become the person that you could be, or to build the business that could do something great.”
The words circled in my brain: You’re not daring to become the person you could be. I thought, “But I want to dare.”
He shrugged. “So. I don’t know. We may want to use that in the book, or not. You can make the call.”
The best part of my job is learning from my authors, hands down. I’m not sure if my author’s words yesterday will make it into the book. But they’re words I’m going to be chewing on all week, circling back to, reviewing, and highlighting in my brain.
What risk are you choosing? Is it the risk you want?
