Your cosmic tango with opportunity and risk

If you have ever heard me speak at an event, then you probably know that I have taken a ton of risks. Some were “good risks” and some not so much. Some I’d take again and others rather not (though I may not regret them).

What I mean by “good risks” is not defined by the result they created. It’s defined by whether taking those risks would still make sense to me, now that I consider myself wiser than I was at, let’s say, 20.

Because even though I hate to admit it, I did take a couple of dumb risks… I’m not gonna talk about those today, though.

Some would classify at least a portion of my risks as “crazy” ones. – I still stand by those, though I would likely tweak a few things in hindsight, and I’m not particularly keen on repeating them. The ones that fall into this category were often related to adventures or just experiences I made in new locations I’d moved to and where sometimes my only two choices were to do it or miss out (“take it or leave it”)… like carrying the cash to buy a house for my business from one bank to the other in my socks. One wrong move, and all my savings could have been gone! That was in 2006… Or walking from Maboneng to the Drill Hall in Johannesburg and back with a street vendor I met so he could show me his arts and crafts projects there. I wouldn’t change a thing about this adventure; as far as I’m concerned, it was the highlight of one of my stays in this city. We had the most incredible encounters on our way. (Later found out the guy was armed with huge scissors in his sleeve, just in case someone would walk up on us).

And then I took risks that, while requiring a portion of guts, many others have taken them, too, like leaving a management job behind in California to open a B&B in Buenos Aires; a business of which I knew nothing except that I wanted it. Or moving to a new city where you know exactly no one. Or hitchhiking to Amsterdam at the age of 16 or backpacking through Central America later. Or rappelling or diving, despite my (mild but active) claustrophobia. You get the idea…

Sometimes, I’d act on my own urge (like in the case of that business in Buenos Aires), and at other times, I grabbed opportunities that were presented to me (like a leadership role in Madrid I had no relevant background for, judging by general standards). There are very few opportunities that I didn’t jump on in my younger years, like an attractive role in Singapore, which would have allowed me to work in four Asian countries, a potential relocation to Australia, and a temporary assignment in India. There were other factors that were more important at the time, like personal preferences and… people in my life.

There is a myriad of opportunities out there… unlimited opportunities, in fact. Not all seem attractive to us, some come at the wrong time, and some others we fail to see… because we keep ourselves too busy or because our subconscious filters are not picking them up, or because we think they are “not for us” because we’re somehow not enough.

Most opportunities represent a certain level of risk.

As we consider which opportunities are right for us, we weigh the expected benefits against the risks, and we hope that we’re making the “right decision.” And we tend to measure the “rightness” of a decision by the results we obtain from it. Which per se, is not a bad thing to do.

It’s just that some decisions that didn’t provide us with the desired results, were still the right decisions. For example, when we made a great decision but didn’t put in the effort to create the results we wanted. Or maybe it was our best shot because any other decision was just out of the question. Or we made the best decision we could make with the information we had access to at the time. Or our circumstances changed. It could be anything…

Fact is, some opportunities simply are opportunities for growth. They are amazing gifts from the Universe, even if we receive them with resistance at first,… if we consider them adversities.

As soon as we change our perspective, and we turn adversity into an opportunity for growth, it’s always going to play out in our favor. Because in the end, any opportunity will either give us the result we want or the lesson we need.

My point is, if we want something really bad, we sometimes gotta take a risk. This also applies to our careers or businesses.

Some would say you should only take calculated risks. As far as I am concerned, I’m not so sure about that. Because there are many risks worth taking that I wouldn’t know how to calculate. And I’d have missed out on most of the adventures in my eclectic life if I’d only taken calculated risks. So, I personally will never stop taking gutsy or even crazy risks, and that’s ok. The ones I want to avoid are the dumb ones.

This is what I mean with “cosmic tango with opportunity and risk.”

And this tango looks different for different people. So, as always, I’m curious:

What’s an example of a “crazy risk” you took or an adversity you turned into an opportunity for growth?

Comment below!?