Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  Where did you get this belief? Some book on entrepreneurship, perhaps?
Seriously, write down a quick list of your 50 personal achievements. Then ask yourself - did you REALLY take any risks, to achieve any of these? I think you'll find that many achievements are possible without any significant risk.
For example, one of my personal achievements is that I scored very good grades in university. I do not consider that I took any risks in order to achieve this. I simply studied diligently and consistently. However I do not consider studying to be inherently risky.
Another of my personal achievements is that I have raised two kids who, IMO, are happy, healthy and clever. However, I am hard-pressed to name the risks that I have taken, in order to cause them to be happy, healthy and clever.
A third personal achievement of mine is that I am quite rich. Now a major factor in my becoming rich is that I am consistently prudent with my expenses and I avoid buying unnecessary things. Being prudent with my expenses and avoiding unnecessary things does not require any risk-taking.
A fourth personal achievement of mine is that at a certain time of my life (unfortunately not now), I was physically very fit. This was simply the result of exercising regularly. However I do not consider regular exercise to be risky behaviour unless you take your exercise to extremes (and I did not).
A fifth personal achievement of mine is that I once received a special commendation letter from the CEO of my organisation for being one of the top employees. I was not however commended for anything that had to do with risk-taking or which resulted from risk-taking. I was commended for my technical knowledge of a certain field; and for being very helpful and useful to a certain division of the organisation. None of this, as I said, had anything to do with taking risks.
Etc etc.
I could go on, but you get the idea. There are numerous kinds of achievements which do not require any significant risk-taking. Instead they may require other things like practice, diligence, talent, luck, opportunities, consistency, perseverance, creativity, interpersonal skills, IQ, EQ or any number of other things.
I can also think of various occupations where the most successful people would almost certainly not be known for their risk-taking behavior. For example, doctors, surgeons, passenger pilots, accountants, safety inspection officers, nuclear facility personnel and corporate lawyers. |