Sunny Friday: “You don’t have to be fearless to make dramatic changes”
Friday, September 18, 2009
image courtesy of ms.Tea
I was catching up on my newsreader this morning and came across this article from Tim Ferriss’s blog, an excerpt from the book The Leap (which I haven’t read, but after reading this bit of it, I will). This excerpt examines Bill Gates’s “origination story” and in the process, explodes the myth of entrepreneurs as audacious risk takers. According to author Rick Smith, “The Leap” actually unfolds as a series of small steps of testing hypotheses and tweaking ideas until the big risk becomes the next logical step.
“You don’t have to be fearless to make dramatic changes in your life. Transformative change isn’t propelled by raw courage. It’s “sparked” by a series of events that build exposure and experience, both of which help to create asymmetric risk. Through sparking, the upside opportunity is confirmed while downside risk is mitigated. Ultimately, the leap—when it comes—is not one of faith but of experience, even of comfort, just as it was for Gates.”
This is really an exciting idea to contemplate in terms of building a new way for humans to live based on bright green principles. We don’t have to screw up our courage and take a massive leap into the unknown. We just have to try new things, accept the feedback, and try again. This involves a certain amount of self-discipline for sure to avoid falling back into inertia, and a certain amount of discomfort. But maybe looking at it this way makes our enormous task of reinvention a little less terrifying and a bit more fun.
What do you think about this? How much risk is involved in creating a new way to live? How much risk is involved in avoiding it?
I like this. I know other people see me as a person with a high risk tolerance (or just plain crazy) and I joke that I live my life by flinging myself at the future and seeing what happens. Really, though, I feel like I take a lot of really small risks and gather a lot of information so when opportunity presents itself I’m ready to go.
People who avoid risk confound me. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them, just that I don’t understand that mindset. Life is a risk. Walking out my door and getting in my car is a risk. You can’t hide from it. When Steve Irwin died my dad said to me, “There never going to put ‘killed by a stingray’ in my obituary.” He meant that as a positive thing, that he wouldn’t get himself killed doing something foolish. I’d much rather have “killed by a stingray” in my obituary (well maybe not that, since supposedly it hurts like hell) and say I did something with my life than die at 100 in my sleep feeling like I didn’t accomplish anything.
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