This is no small thing I'm talkin' about ...

~ protecting what we have while risking what we have it part of every day

None of this thinking I’m doing assures me of anything I don’t earn, don’t deserve and won’t be happy with the result. There is risk, and I freely take it.

Nothing makes any particular opportunity wise; my appetite for anything worthy for anything, anyone or any situation is worthy when I believe its worthiness.

We all take these risks for every leap courageously taken - it’s safe, sure, but risk-wrapped tight too …

I wonder if we required an actuary’s report with every choice, would we take the risks we take?

Insurance companies do serious math before they take or price a risk.

I wonder if we should substitute an actuarial report into our risk management - because assessing risk is a form of self-insuring for a risk we’re prepared to take, a ‘consider the costs/risk benefit of leaping before leaping …

It’s old news that the greater the risks, the greater the potential rewards - but when we invest ourselves into a venture, adventure, a deal, or an agreement to talk sometimes soon, the risk element is always a necessary element of the pursuit of the reward, and the losses if/when they occur are not usually ‘complete destruction’ events. I was asked for some advice the other day about rebuilding after a fire when the basement floor slab and foundation walls were intact - so, it wasn’t a complete disaster after all.

Yes, sometimes the smartest decision is no, not a chance - feet don’t fail me now.

Sometimes the smartest choice is “I’m in!'“

Protecting what we’ve built, what we have and what we don’t let go of - that’s important, right?

The point isn’t to favour the safest risk.

It’s to count the risk on both sides vis-a-vis the reward value, the future of the venture - before deciding which choice we can live with vs. the one we can’t live without.

Often, these choices are not one party choosing; they’re two or more parties choosing, negotiating in a traditional offer-acceptance competitive and adversarial tussle of give-and-take, to get a win-win from a give-give contribution where everyone contributes and everybody wins. Sure. Yes. It’s a fairytale. The prince rescues the damsel, the princess kisses the frog, the banker falls in a puddle, the trolls guard the bridge, and everyone lives happily ever after..

Sometimes that involves having another party meet us half-way, part way or no-way at all …

Nothing’s a crap-shoot, unless we’re rolling dice at a casino - and yet, when you consider all the choices and risks we juggle in our past, current and future lives, there is some manner of joyful success and cruel failing in just about everything, so it’s try again, risk failure again/every time while tasting success and the joy of it when we can because we can. The positive attitude alone guarantees nothing, but who would discount its value to any outcome?

Why would we not?

Risks we take come in two forms - going two directions, and standing still occupies one of them, as if they can take directions at all. But risks aren’t the accelerator, or the brakes - they’re factors to think about, weigh, consider, or set aside.

Business teaches us this already:

Capital sitting still isn’t necessarily safe.

Companies that refuse to invest because investment carries risk eventually discover that standing still carries risk too.

Markets move. Competitors move. Technology moves.

People move too.

So maybe “What could I lose?” is only half the question.

What becomes impossible if I don’t act?

“What would I stand to gain?”

Time, energy, curiosity, courage, experience, reputation, mobility, imagination, relationships, and the willingness to begin again belong on balance sheets too, even if accountants haven’t found the right columns.

And with more road behind us than ahead, don’t we see the present-value vs. future- value analysis differently?

I’m not advocating recklessness dressed up as courage. I’m suggesting that risk avoidance can become its own life-limiting risk.

Some things deserve our grip.

Some, we can share; some we can let go.

Others may require us to loosen it so both hands are available when something, someone, or some extraordinary combination arrives.

Opportunity isn’t simply given to us, or caught when it’s flying by - we seize the time, the thing, the idea - and we make an opportunity out of what no one else saw.

It’s recognized, created, seized, taken - it’s negotiated, or missed entirely.

Halfway may be fair, but living fully usually requires choosing, after asking, which half we’re willing to risk losing or leaving behind; but it also strikes me that every movement toward something, someone, some place - is also a movement away from somewhere else …