Risk managers

Like it or not, we are all risk managers. Human beings spend an enormous amount of time trying to eliminate the risk we face in every situation. We want guarantees and re-assurances.

We live in the safest world in human history. Yet, we still find ourselves waiting for the fear of failure to go away before we will start living our lives. Fear is never going to go away. So, we’re stuck, waiting for a day that will never come.

The answer then is not waiting for the day to come when market conditions are perfect or the environment to be completely free of risk, but to learn to dance with the fear, to reduce risk to a level that will allow you to continue to play the game if you fail.

Heading to Vegas, betting your entire 401K on Red 13 is a game of high risk/high reward. The cost of failure could be crippling.

On the other hand, failing to close a sale might mean embarrassment or shame. But it probably won’t cost you your job, you will still find a way to pay the mortgage, you won’t end up on the streets, you are not going to starve to death (even though we think we will).

If failure isn’t an option than neither is success.

This might work. This might not work. But you won’t know until you try.