STEP 8: Risk-Tasking

(Brian Dangerfield's 15 Steps to Greatness #8, 2009)

Hello, loyal readers, and welcome to a special ‘international edition’ of Brian Dangerfield’s 15 Steps To Greatness. I am writing this in a ‘cyber café’ in Hong Kong airport as I wait to board a flight to Thailand.* Coincidentally, air travel ties in nicely with this week’s step, which is all about risk-taking. Every time we get on an aeroplane, we are taking a risk. Our plane could crash, or, even worse, we could get stranded on a mysterious island – just like in that popular show, Lost on an Island. However, we still get on that plane because it helps us achieve something. In my case, my trip to Thailand will help me get away from the high-stress lifestyle of Dunedin (and maybe give me a chance to meet some new people).

That basically sums up what risk-taking is all about. There’s no point taking a risk if there’s no chance that you’ll get anything out of it. Jumping off a cliff is pretty risky, but you’re not going to achieve much (apart from a big mess!) So, how do we decide when we should take a risk? Put simply, it is worth taking a risk when the potential gain from succeeding at said risk is greater than the potential loss if you fail, taking into account the relative probabilities of each outcome. For example, quitting your job because a personal friend of yours is on the interview panel for a better position is a good risk to take. However, quitting your job to become a professional theatre actor is a bad risk to take. Just ask my youngest son Glen, whose lust for the spotlight cost him a real, well-paying finance job. What a terrible waste.

“Oh, I don’t know Brian,” I hear you say. “All this risk-taking sounds a bit scary. I think I’ll just keep doing things the way I’ve always done them.” Wrong! For a start, you can never avoid taking risks. Every day we do things that are risky in some way or another. You may think that eating a ham sandwich isn’t dangerous, but just look at what happened to poor old ‘Big Mama’ Cass from The Mamas and Papas! But more seriously, if you never take risks then you cannot grow as a person. How can you get that pretty girl to go out with you if you don’t take a risk and ask her first? How can you get that dream job if you don’t take a risk and refuse to settle for a boring job you don’t like? If you never take risks then your life will be the same, day after day. You will become boring and everybody will forget you exist. How do you think The Rolling Stones have stayed popular for so long? Certainly not by doing the same old thing year after year. In other words, you need to take risks in order to advance your life, to take you one step closer to…  greatness.


* I actually did write this in Hong Kong airport on my way home from Japan