Risky Business – how to get risky without going topless!

Author- Karim S. Meghji PT

The age-old question remains- “why are some people better risk takers and others risk adverse”? Why are some people better at taking that jump with both feet while others always have one foot firmly and permanently planted? Could it be that our risk-taking peers take the leap and never look down?

Personally, I have always had a very difficult time with risks whether it is personal or professional. Perhaps what has made me Risk adverse was watching my parents, who came to Canada with nothing more than the shirts on their backs, they worked laboriously to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. Their struggle taught me the value of every dollar, every nickel and every penny. Consequently, as a young child, I often thought a penny saved was a penny earned. The whole notion of having a piggy bank almost reinforced the comfort of putting money away for a rainy day. The question I often wonder is: “how does one change the comfort of security to the uncertainty of taking risks”? Although I am no expert on this topic, my quest to end this paralysis by analysis has lead me to learn some insight about risk taking.

Challenging the Status Quo

Perhaps the basis of any risk is the general discontent with the status quo in our lives. Risk according to many of my entrepreneurial mentors is about seeing the invitation of innovation. That invitation always starts with this line…. ” How do I make things better”? It is perhaps easier to complain about the glass being empty but perhaps more fruitful to think about what great ideas are out there to fill that void. Identifying inefficiencies is the seed to innovative thoughts. Those innovative thoughts are what drive the adrenaline junky in us to take that risk because it has real meaning and value.

Living your Dream and Not someone else’s

Isn’t it odd how when we are young we are taught to dream. Not only to dream but to dream in technicolor. Yet later in our maturation we are somehow taught to comply to the vision of our teachers, parents and even employers! I often suspect that corporations spend infinite amounts of time on the their mission statement as a covert op to hypnotize their employees into drones of cash flow dream makers. The corporations have us hooked on a street drug commonly known as ‘the steady pay cheque’!  I would be the first to admit that I am an addict to that corporate cash cocaine. It is that drug that has me checking my bank account twice a month fixated on my next hit. So I am busy day to day working hard to improve their bottom line and forgetting about what could inevitably bring me more eternal happiness – realizing my personal dreams. I often wonder where do corporate paycheck addicts go for rehab?

Perhaps the first step of rehab for such addicts is to risk comfort and look beyond your current work environment. I’m sure that there is a happy medium between corporate culture and personal ambition. Therefore strategic risk taking would involve aligning oneself with organizations that share the same vision and allow you to grow with them and recognize the collective achievement.

Putting it down on paper

So perhaps my greatest skill as a physio is my mind manipulation skills and how I’m able to persuade my clients to go along the path I set out for them by tapping into their own internal motivation. My wife often gives me this back handed complement on occasion. She says ” Hun, you know what I love about you? Your voice is so melodic it’s almost hypnotic but if you actually listen to the words coming out of your mouth you don’t make a lot of sense!” Hopefully my patients are not taking note of this! But what I can credit my overachieving, child prodigy wife, on her success as an entrepreneurial health care professional is her ability to have a clear vision of what she wants and gets in on paper.  I often see her writing these goals down and all the particulars needed to make it happen. Often the back of last nite’s dinner napkin is riddled with gems of how to make inspired goals inside become reality on the outside. I often wonder if we should put down our Ipads and pick up our notepads to make our ideas real. Perhaps the carbon from our pencils, the ink from our pens, give us accountability to our ideas, validity to our dreams and allow us to clearly see that taking risks is the only path to realizing our dreams. So in effect that pencil and paper might be the Valium needed to calm the tachycardia of the risk adverse.

Taking the calculated risk

So was my piggy bank designed to be broken at some point or was I supposed to be accumulating an insurmountable amount of pennies for the rest of my life? Perhaps we should take a lesson from another bank, namely the Bank of Canada who recently has made plans to phase out my cherished pennies! So if the greatest financial gurus in our nation decide that banking our copper is not a great idea, should that inspire us to change our poverty penny- pinching habits? Is this where risk comes in? Should we take our cherished childhood piggy bank and crack it open on the Vegas card gaming tables? I can just visualize turning my piggy into ‘winner winner chicken dinner” on the blackjack tables. Getting back to reality… Perhaps taking risks are the path to not only validating our savings but realizing the potential of these savings into fulfilled dreams. But what I have learned about the risk equation is that it requires a cost benefit analysis. Passing that check ensures that you do not transition from one bank to the food bank!

Lady Luck: is it about having her by your side or is it about being first by her side?

Even with the best plan, and the best analysis, we all need the intangible that cannot be predicted or contained…. Luck. You know Lady Luck is by your side when all the planets line up and the universe unanimously accepts your idea. So are risk takers around us luckier than us? Perhaps… if we see them through the green lens of envy? Or are these just people that challenge the status quo, dream of personal, passionate and innovative solutions, with a clear cost-effective plan? Perhaps.. But are they also first to market an idea that unequivocally has no other competing solutions? Probably! Clearly identifying a specific and much needed niche and being first to market are two great ways to make your risky idea a little less risqué.

This article by no means was supposed to replace the plethora of information on risk taking but was written to inspire discussion amongst our peers. I encourage our members to continue this discussion in  ” The Hot Tub ” The Naked Newbie lounge for inspired minds and creative collective ideas. See you there!