A Life Less Risky

Adii Pienaar -

If you had the chance to remove all risks from your life, would you take that opportunity?<...>

This is what a really great friend asked me last week over lunch and my immediate answer wasn't all that surprising.

"No, I wouldn't."

In fact, I kinda like risks. Not in a way that you'll find me sky-diving or bungee jumping, but in a way where I enjoy finding ways to work around them.

I'm not a gambler nor am I callous in the way I live my life. But a variety of risks are omni-present.

In that sense, risks are an inherent part of my life.

The context and segue to my friend's question (and our subsequent conversation about risk) was about money and specifically financial security.

Money has never been something that has motivated me, but financial security has become more important since I got married and then again, when my son was born.

To an extent, I feel like I'm in control of my own destiny (as an entrepreneur) and the risks I thus take on board. But those risks aren't necessarily my family's choice and I think they should be shielded from that.

The thing about entrepreneurs though is that we don't like risks more than anybody else; we have just become more intelligent about dealing with risk.

The risk(s) around being an entrepreneur, money and how that relates to financial security (and the impact on my family) are kinda obvious. And natural.

I've learnt though that whilst this remains a risk that I try manage, there's actually not too much I can do about it.

Instead, there's loads of other risks in my life that has a significant impact on the way I live my life:

  • The risk of avoiding a challenge and not using it to develop a new skill.
  • The risk of never making mistakes that turns into lessons learnt.
  • The risk of not starting, experimenting and trying to see what's actually possible.
  • The risk of one day having regret about all the things I never did (whilst I had to the opportunity to do them).

These are all risks that are a positive energy in my life and especially the decisions I make.

Instead of being crippled with this responsibility or going into constant constant risk mitigation mode, I've figured out how to make these risks work for me.

Would a life less risky work for me?

Probably not.