Take Calculated Risks: Life’s Greatest Risk Is To Not Risk At All

I’m a big believer in taking calculated risks.

Putting a lot on the line has gotten me to where I am today and has taught me everything I know about business.

Are you content with where you’re at in life? I’m all for being grateful and happy in the moment, but greatness was never borne out of just being ‘ok’ with how things are.

Consider your life an opportunity to make yourself a better person each day and achieve greatness beyond your wildest dreams. To do anything less is to fall short of your true potential.

It’s easier said than done, but if you never take calculated risks, you’ll lead a boring existence and find yourself regretting that you never tried.

It’s so easy to continue down the path you’re on in life, allowing the feeling of comfort to rule your daily actions.

You’ve got your routine of heading into work, taking an hour lunch, hitting the gym on your way home, watching a couple of shows from the couch, and getting nine solid hours of sleep. On weekends, you go out both nights and sleep in, hit the beach or the park, and relax.

Not many people would argue that this doesn’t sound half bad. However, if you’re ambitious and want to achieve something abnormally great in your lifetime, this routine is not for you. You need to break that habit right now.

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As an entrepreneur, every day of your life that you live like this, you’re doing yourself a disservice. That’s not to say you can’t have fun and go out on weekends and spend time relaxing, but you need to apply discipline in this area of your life when you’re working full-time and your free time is a limited resource.

Life is all about balance, and hangovers aren’t very conducive to thinking clearly anymore, so plan accordingly.

You must train yourself to achieve in all aspects of your life, no matter how big or small the achievement. On a daily basis, take risks that make you feel uncomfortable, push yourself outside of your comfort zone, sleep less, and devote more time to learning & pursuing passions.

If you really want to succeed, you’ll sacrifice hours of sleep and some nights of drinking with friends.

Find your balance of work & play and stick with it.

Work your ass off today and you’ll be able to live life according to your own desires in the future.

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Taking calculated risks teaches you life’s most important lesson. That nothing comes easy, and anything meaningful that does come easy, just isn’t as great as something you worked hard for.

This is something you can’t learn in school, and you won’t know how it feels until you’ve accomplished something great as a result of your own efforts. Once you commit to a dream and take the necessary calculated risks to achieve your goals, you’ll learn the power (and necessity) of having unwavering persistence and determination every day.

Giving up is not an option, and neither is failure.

No successful entrepreneur got to where they are today by taking zero risks. They dared to try something different in the face of opposition, spent huge amounts of time working on something that countless people told them would be impossible and through sheer determination made it a reality.

Having the mentality that you’re going to make your dreams come to life no matter what, will make you much more flexible and open to necessary changes in your game plan.

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Whether your dreams include fast Ferrari’s, extravagant mansions around the world, or simply having the means to raise a beautiful family one day, you’ll be successful at none of these without taking calculated risks.

The greater the dream, the greater the risks you must be prepared to take.

Never let anything dictate the size of your dreams, always dream big and use the resources at your disposal to make them happen. Your ability to learn and adapt necessary skills is always going to be your most powerful resource, more powerful than money ever will be.

Big accomplishments rarely happen over night. They’re the reward of hours, days, weeks, months, even years of hard work and often substantial calculated risks.

Decide what you want out of life, develop a game plan to getting there, and take the necessary risks to make it happen.

To try and not succeed is a much bigger accomplishment than never trying at all.

The lessons you learn along the way contribute to making you who you are and you’re that much more prepared for success the next time around because of it.

To risk is to learn.