Entrepreneurship and Risk Taking Mindset:
Entrepreneurship and Risk taking mindset are not two different things. Every entrepreneur is a natural risk taker. Playing secure is not the character of an entrepreneur. He takes those risks which an average person would simply refuse to. Every opportunity necessarily involves risks. In fact opportunity and risk are two aspects of one single phenomenon.
Opportunity is like a flower which lies within the thorns of risk, everyone loves to have the flower but scared of thorns. Logically if there would be no risk in a venture, everyone would like to try it, and thus the opportunity will be killed. Risk is that fundamental key element which keeps an average person away from exploiting an opportunity.
When something most complicated has to be addressed it’s compared with Rocket Science. Imagine the complexities that can arise if you run a business which deals with Rockets and Space Travel. Elon Musk is one of the greatest risk-takers of all times in human history. No individual had ever dare to start a company which could claim to take people to space. Before ‘SpaceX’ this kind of venture could be only handled by governments of nations. People like Elon Musk have proved that the greatest opportunities lie within greatest risks, and the greatest entrepreneurs are the greatest risk-takers.
An average person remains average because he likes to remain in a comfort zone with least amount of risks. Average person represents the majority of the masses. Average mentality indicates the people who think alike. A risk taker thinks differently. A risk taker is always the first mover rest of the people just become his followers. A follower moves in the direction where the success looks obvious and where the path is already defined and tested by someone.
“Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller
Now the question is: why an average person is scared of the risk involved in an opportunity?
There are two fundamental reasons:
- No clarity of the possible favorable outcomes: After knowing about an opportunity, majority of people can’t calculate it’s possibility of turning into a profitable venture.
- Lack of confidence: Even if few people can calculate the possibility of it’s profitability in the future, they don’t take action due to their shaking confidence.
Co-relation between Opportunity & Risk:
Every opportunity stays for a limited time period until it is grabbed by some people. It also comes with the proportional value of risk associated with it. Every opportunity dies with time, however new opportunities keep coming. Wherever there is a fear of loosing is involved in an activity or a situation, whether it’s your finances, personal savings, assets or your social status, your mind views it as a risk.
Furthermore every bold or presumptuous activity can’t be termed as ‘risk-taking’. An activity that you can’t enumerate in terms of it’s outcome, is a matter of chance. Only your expectations of turning it into a bankable pursuit would not help. Risk can be seen as a narrow pathway which is difficult to walk by, but not impossible one.
Many people have a misconception that gambling is similar to risk-taking. The fact is that gambling is purely based on chance or probability, you can calculate the favorable outcomes which are highly unlikely but you can’t control or modify them with any amount of efforts. Whereas a risk can, not only be calculated but can be controlled as well.
An entrepreneur never plays the game of chance. A game of chance doesn’t have the scope for efforts and it can’t be shaped into a tangible opportunity by planning and deploying necessary resources and forecasting it’s outcomes. When an entrepreneur takes risk, he looks at the greater possibilities of the success based on his experience and calculations. He has a long term plan in place.
Risk for example is: when you are crossing a road where vehicles are running at high speeds, you would only dare to walk across when you are sure that you can make it without colliding with any passing vehicle. This will not be based on your hope or expectations rather it would be based on your calculations and past experiences.
And “chance”, in this example would be: if you try to cross the same running road with your eyes closed, then your possibility of crossing it successfully would be completely a matter of chance.
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Why to take risk?
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go.” — T.S. Eliot
There are broadly two types of people in the world:
- People who are passionately leading the world by bringing the change with their creativity, innovation, risk taking capacity and hard work.
- The followers.
If there is something of greater value, it would be difficult to achieve. The higher the risk is, the noble the reward would be. Easy things are tried and tested and majority of people are doing them from ages. Crowd always moves in the direction of ease, and crowd makes you feel safe as well. All ordinary things can be achieved by moving with the crowd.
On the other side all noble things of human race have been achieved by few individuals and not by the crowd. Only few rebel who tried to go against the flow and took a risk, could make the difference. Risk of failure and risk of rejection is always there when you try something new and different and which goes against the ‘average thinking’. Only people who believed in themselves and who could see the outcome clearly beforehand, could dare to take such risks.
If you you don’t take risk, nothing goes wrong and life remains easy because you see majority of people are living that kind of life. Terms like ‘Easy’ or ‘difficult’ are relative, when you see there are millions of people living in a particular life style around you, it becomes a mental norm and seems easy.
Difficulty starts when you see a person like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Sakichi Toyoda or Dhirubhai Ambani. They inspire people and their life style makes you think differently.
If you don’t take risk, life will remain easy but ordinary. There can be no containment because you would not try anything exceptional. If you don’t try extraordinary things you would not achieve anything extraordinary. Life without containment finally becomes a regret and regret is a poison.
To make life joyful and to achieve fulfillment you have to take risk. Your potential is way higher than you could ever imagine. The more you take risk the more you realize your true potential. Entrepreneurship is nothing but a risk-taking mindset. So don’t wait, just go ahead and take greatest risks and make your dreams a reality.
Wish you all the best..!!
AkhilMantra
Grow higher stay rooted..
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A well described though process of what wonders risk can do . I have loved the way the examples were out in and the flow of the entire article, especially where risk taking and chance are explained and differentiated. However , since it is also about entrepreneurship, I felt that a huge capability such as being an entrepreneur has been capped just by the ability of taking Risk . Intel entrepreneurship is much more than this , though risk taking forms the very foundation of it. Attributes like out of box thinking , unwillingness to quit , a passionate doer , self belief to follow one’s dreams and much more too forms an integral part of his personality .
Nevertheless , loved every bit of it as always and again an inspiration to those who loves and know how to take risk n create opportunities for themselves.
Thanks for your valuable comments @Jyoti
Risk taking mindset is rare, all other qualities you mentioned, can create a “good employee” but not an entrepreneur. A real risk taker works at a much higher level, above all the other qualities. You won’t take risk until you already acquire all these basic facets, because the confidence of a risk taker comes from these basic qualities. Risk taking mindset is above all other traits, in fact it’s that final and deciding characteristic property of a person that qualifies him/her as an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is an innovator who can think out of the box, never gives up and passionate about his work already. You can find many people in various organizations who possess all these qualities but they still never become an entrepreneur, just because of not being able to take those huge risks.
I hope this clarifies the difference.
Wish you all the best..!!