Taking no risks is also a risk
If you’ve been reading (or listening) for a while, you know that I’m always banging on about risk. Why people are bad at assessing it, why what we think of as risky often isn’t, how risk can be a good thing, not a bad thing, etc. But today I wanted to address the people (many of them my clients!) who describe themselves as risk-averse.
At a time when the world feels different (and worse, much worse) every time we wake up in the morning, there’s considerable temptation to play it safe! You want to hold onto what you have, not do anything that feels uncomfortable, and try to ride out the storm. A few examples:
You don’t want to risk your income by quitting your job and starting your own business.
You don’t want to risk ending your mediocre relationship in case you don’t find someone else.
You don’t want to move somewhere new, in case it’s worse than the place you left.
It feels safer, yes, but….is it the right decision? Taking no risks, I’ve found, is ALSO a risk. Sometimes we think we’re playing it right but we’re actually missing out on opportunities.
I wrote something similar during the pandemic. The vibes were kind of the same. Panic, confusion, a sense of doom. But it also seemed like there was an opportunity to disrupt the status quo (NOT, ahem, in the Optimizer Tech Bro way) so as to make things better, either for yourself or for the world. Who knew what the rules were anymore?! It’s freeing, in a way, to feel like you can try new things with fewer consequences than before.
I’ve been having a lot of fun coaching a lot of people on their side hustle ideas recently (if you missed this year’s Side Hustle Huddle, it’ll come around again next year! Or you can book a regular session and we can hash it out then). And there’s been a perceptible shift away from a single “secure, steady” job (because everyone’s realizing that doesn’t actually exist) and towards the realm of “what can I do on my OWN?” Outside of institutions, outside of traditional structures. There’s also been a big move away from jobs that people are afraid AI will gobble up, and towards jobs that the robots can’t do yet. One client is starting to take on small jobs as an arborist. Another is going to coach parents who want to talk to their kids about how to handle money, without their kids hating them.
These aren’t risky, per se. No one’s abandoning their families or quitting their jobs and just crossing their fingers that things work out. But they’re taking a chance. Doing something that feels intimidating, new, maybe a little risky.
Hunkering down is our first instinct when things get bad, but I want to suggest that you think about a choice you could make Right Now that might feel risky, but which could have huge potential rewards.
Give it a try and let me know what you come up with!