Fear
How to find the courage to take risks?
Risk what you can lose, not what you can't. Set the limit first, test small, decide with data and accept that courage is a decision, not a feeling.
Every life that changed direction had a moment when someone took a risk. And every risk has two sides: what can go wrong, and what will never happen if you don't try. Having courage is not ignoring the first side; it's looking at both.
What to do now
- Separate risk from recklessness. Risk is betting something you can lose to gain something worthwhile. Recklessness is betting what can't be lost: your home, food, health, other people's money without their knowledge.
- Set the limit before you start. How much time, how much money, how much energy are you willing to invest before reassessing? Write it down. That turns a leap in the dark into a controlled experiment.
- Test small. Sell before producing in quantity. Run a pilot project. Work part-time in the new field. Small tests generate data, and data reduce fear.
- Listen to those who know, but decide yourself. Ask the opinion of people who understand the subject. Then remember: many people will say "it can't be done" just because they've never tried. Tell a technical warning apart from someone else's fear.
- Be wary of "risk-free" risk. Promises of certain gains, easy money and "today only" opportunities are not courage; they are traps.
- Commit publicly to someone you trust. Telling one person your plan increases the chance you'll follow through.
- Decide, even without certainty. Courage is a decision, made before the feeling arrives.
- Prepare plan B before you start. Knowing what you'll do if it goes wrong takes away much of the fear and lets you take the risk with a cool head.
When it happened to Bairo
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez took risks many times, and didn't always win. He took a risk when he left the company that brought him to Brazil. He took a risk when he created a course in a field that had not yet found its place. He took a risk when he joined, as an investing partner, a business that was not what it seemed, and he lost.
The most unlikely risk, he says, came after that loss. With many people depending on him, he decided to do something he didn't know how to do: build a currency, a bank and a navigation network. It went wrong; the people he had helped left him hanging. He kept going.
He admires Ayrton Senna for this: before any victory, there was a decision, and after it came courage and persistence.
The path
Courage is not having no fear. It's deciding that fear won't be the one who decides. In Bairo's story, not every risk paid off, but each one taught him to take risks better. Take risks with limits, with tests and with your eyes open. And remember that, sometimes, the biggest risk is going through your whole life without trying.
After taking a risk, celebrate the courage, not only the result. If it works, great. If it goes wrong, you'll have learned something that can only be learned by taking risks, and you'll know how to take them better next time. Whoever never takes risks never makes mistakes, but never finds out what they are capable of either. Courage is a muscle: it grows with use and withers with fear.