Up until now, I’ve talked about how you need to have faith and how you also need to act. You know, the whole faith without works is dead. I also talked about how you need to take personal responsibility for your side of the street, your actions, and what you’ve got going on in your own life and in your business. And then in the last episode, we talked about the importance of not getting attached to outcomes.
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So, in this episode, what I want to talk about is the fact that everything is a risk. And the reason I want to talk about this is that I will oftentimes talk to people and they’re afraid of taking the risk in joining one of my programs. Or they just don’t really trust themselves to make decisions and they don’t really trust themselves to take calculated risks.
Why people don’t take risks
It makes total sense. We live in a society that’s all about hoarding all your money, not taking risks, not trying new things, etc. We get these messages every single freaking day. So, I’m not surprised that people are afraid of risk. There’s also miseducation in terms of risk. I would venture to say, take investing in the stock market, for example. There’s a risk in investing in the stock market, but there’s also like a massive risk in not investing in the stock market. Do you know how much money you’re leaving on the table?
And that is due to the fact that people don’t necessarily understand how investing works. Maybe they see investing as more like gambling or picking a hot stock or, as a recent example, when Bitcoin was really hot. So they see it more that way instead of, “No, wait, actually, this is more of a long term strategy type thing,”. So, that’s a part of it. I think part of the reason people are afraid to take risks is that there’s just miseducation on the kind of risk they’re actually taking.
I think it’s also that as a society, you’re just told to avoid risk at all costs. You are taught to control as much as possible because horrible things are going to happen to you. So, God forbid you take a risk before this horrible thing happens to you, that’s pretty common. People are pessimists. So I think that’s part of the reason they don’t necessarily take risks, and they don’t trust themselves. Also, people think failure is like the worst thing in the world.
Reframe the idea of failure
So, one of the things I’ve been talking about recently is how we need to reframe the idea of failure. So, people don’t want to take risks because they’re afraid to fail. But in reality, there really is no such thing as failure. And I know that sounds really hokey, but it’s true. There is no such thing as failure.
I’ve “failed” plenty of times, and I’ve even talked about publicly on my social media and blog. I’m not pretending to be anybody I’m not. That ends up working in my favor because I’m being authentic. You know what I find really funny? When people are like, “Be authentic,” as if it’s like a formula. It’s like not a formula, t’s just being honest with people. So, that’s part of the reason why I do it, to be transparent with you guys, to show you that like, “Hey, whatever struggles you have, I’ve had too,”. And it’s also to reframe the idea of failure.
I’ve failed too (and that hasn’t stopped me)
For example, I can tell you all the ways I have screwed up in my company this year, or something that didn’t work out the way I thought it was gonna work out, or a “failure” in air quotes. And it’s not really a failure. It’s really just a learning lesson.
And the reason I rebound faster is that I’m able to observe it all as data when something doesn’t go right. But that’s a part of the reason why people are afraid to take risks, is because they are afraid to fail and they don’t realize that failure is not really a failure. I think Sara Blakely of Spanx has this great story about how her dad would ask all of them at the dinner table, how they failed. And I find that so amazing.
So, now let’s go into the fact that everything, no matter what you choose to do, is a risk, right? Because if you say no to one thing you’re saying yes to another, and if you’re saying yes to one thing then you’re saying no to another. There’s no such thing as being able to control everything.
No matter what you do, either way, you’re taking a risk, so you might as well take the risk that could possibly make you more money. You just have to decide what kind of a risk you actually want to take.