Entrepreneurs take risks. As I often say, we don’t put on blindfolds and jump off cliffs, but we sure aren’t afraid of taking a risk. You shouldn’t be either.

The Benefits of Taking Risks

I realized recently that it is in fact risk that separates us from cube dwellers. Not the fact that we take risk (sure we do), but how we VIEW risk. That makes us different. To entrepreneurs risk is not bad. Careless is bad. Sloppy is bad. Incomplete is bad. But not risk. Risk, well… Risk is actually good.

Risk means experimentation. It means you have an idea, and you want to test it. You have a theory that needs validation. You have a concept you want to share and see what happens. Taking a risk means pushing yourself and your idea out of a cozy, comfort zone where good and bad things can happen. It’s like pulling a ship away from the dock. Sure, the dock seems smart. You feel secure and can always get off the boat quickly when the dock is right there… but when you untie the ship and pull away?

Yep, you might crash, sink, or get lost. The seas aren’t always smooth.

But failure in most every form has more positives than negatives. For every “oh no, I sunk,” there are ten “amazing, I found new islands”, “I had the time of my life”, “we met amazing people”, “incredible, I saw several wonders of the world.”

Look, get over it. Failure makes you stronger. Failure doesn’t mean you are dead, nor does it mean people hate you. It doesn’t mean that your idea was wrong or even that you should stop. What it means is that you now know more. You learned something. You tested, and you got a result. So, what do you do now? You learn from it, and test again.

I am actually getting more and more frustrated at the idea that somehow people in this day and age are still viewing failing at something you had the guts to try as such a bad thing. What century do we live in?

Inventing Your Future

Cubicle farms, tall buildings, and corporate structure aren’t the future (and they aren’t safe). You invent the future. You own it. Your future is YOU. Your idea. Your business. So what if you fail the first time, or the fourth? If you learn and re-apply the knowledge, you are SO much closer to being right, and you’ll have more stories and more experience than most. So drop the line and seek new worlds. If you crash, call me. I know lots of people currently out exploring the seas who are happy to help you patch up the boat and re-launch.

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