Embracing risk: You only live once

By Dr Tareq Rasheed 

International Consultant and Trainer

Life is too short to waste hesitating and letting others decide for us. Why do so many people fear taking risks? Why do most people not achieve their life’s dream? And why do we usually regard risk as a threat rather than an opportunity?

Fear of failure

People fear failure. There are around three hundred types of fear. We are born with two; fear of falling and fear of noise. So, where do other types of fear come from?

These other fears come from the surrounding environment, how we are raised, other people, circumstances in our lives and culture, just to name a few. One of the top ten types of fear is the fear of failure.

Once we fear failure, we will never achieve success. Failures we face are lessons from which we learn to modify our success. Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked: “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Each trial was a lesson. Imagine the darkness we would be in without Edison’s drive to succeed and never give up.

What kind of risk taker are you?

These three risk categories describe different types of people: 

1. Risk Averse People fear of taking risks and stay in their comfort zone, convinced that what they have achieved in life is enough. They believe proverbs like “Close the door that brings in the wind”. These are about 70 per cent of adults.

2. Risk Takers believe in seizing opportunities that come. They open the door that brings in the wind and they choose to fly with the wind to achieve success. In other words, they take a calculated risk. These are about 20 per cent of adults.

3. Risk Seekers do not wait for the opportunity to come; they create the opportunity. These adventurers are five per cent of the adult population. 

Model of success

Risk seekers tend to follow the pattern of TEFCAS:

• Trial: Any new idea or project starts with a trial Event: The trial becomes a real event

• Feedback: This trial will give feedback

• Check: We check the result of this trial upon certain criteria for success

• Adjust: Based on this check, you adjust and try anew until you reach… 

• Success

One of my favourite slogans by one of the largest international companies in the world is this: “Let’s welcome our failures”. 

Without failure, we will never reach success. We live only once, so let’s achieve our dreams in life by embracing risk.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine