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“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
While standing on the platform at 181st Street in Manhattan waiting for the A train to take me downtown, I noticed someone had written on the grubby tile RISK.
It felt like a message from an unknown entity. I thought about that while boarding the train and realized I have lived my entire life with risk.
There's a long story here, but the short version is this.
I left school at 15, and left home in Scotland at age 16. I moved to London without a job, a place to stay, or friends who could help me out. Years later, I did the same when I moved to San Francisco aged 28 leaving my family behind. I continued taking big risks which have led me down some dark alleys and brilliant sunlit places to explore both the underbelly and the extraordinary aspects of life.
We all take risks in our lives. We risk taking the wrong job, getting married to the wrong person, saying the wrong thing, driving while under the influence, and a myriad of other daily, and life changing risks.
On the platform at 181st Street, I thought about RISK some more, and came up with an acronym...Respect Your Intentions and Show Kourage!
The last word is creative spelling, but you get my point. Setting your intentions and taking steps to achieve them is part of the adventure that allows for the courage to face the uncertainty.
When you think about your life... what risks have you taken in the past, and what risks are you taking today?
My latest BIG risk was to throw everything I had at rebuilding my business after COVID took away my income, and I had to figure out my 'what's next'!
Looking over the library of content I had amassed over seventeen years and delivered in various ways to achieve great results with my clients, I wanted to create an online program that would truly change lives.
Working with a super-smart instructional designer we created Transformational Strategies for Success, a program designed to accelerate change fast, and help people break through the barriers of self-limitation and self-sabotage.
I invested many thousands of dollars to turn things around with no guarantees that it would work. It was a massive risk but I set my intentions and brought all my courage to believe it would work.
In 2022 I had to admit bankruptcy which I had never done before, and while it was a hard pill to swallow, it opened up a whole new chapter for me.
Today, Transformational Strategies for Success is my signature program and I would say it has successfully fulfilled my goal of transforming lives.
Many people don't often ask for what they want. It feels like a massive risk of reputation, integrity and perception of weakness, and so we don't ask.
This is detrimental to forging new directions in your life. If you don't ask, you don't get.
Learning how to ask for what you want is one of the greatest hurdles women especially have to confront. They struggle with negotiating price for their services. They don't want to compromise relationships. They fear conflict and so they avoid, deflect, or stay silent.
This is the opposite of risk and where many dreams go to die.
Are you avoiding the necessary steps to realize your big dreams?
Does your perception of what's possible interfere with your ability to take bigger steps to achieve your goals?
What are your intentions for this coming year? Are you going to take bigger risks?
Consider this:
- What risks are you taking that could change your life tomorrow?
- What risks are planning on taking this coming year?
- What risks have you taken that changed your life?
When you stretch your mind to imagine something greater than what you have currently, and you're willing to put it all out there to get the results you want, then you are playing for high stakes, and the risks are worth the rewards if you pull it off.
In the words of Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, "what's your big hairy audacious goals" for this coming year.