Weekend Wisdom #4 - Taking risks

A wise looking lion with human traits wearing glasses, clothes and reading a book

Welcome to another edition of Weekend Wisdom, a weekly publication where I bring wise and inspiring words from people I admire. My goal with this is to share ideas and thoughts that influence my actions as a person and also my writing.

I don't dare to imagine I am anywhere close to the level of enlightenment that most of the people I will feature in this series have. Still, as a lifelong learner, I aim to get as close as possible and, maybe, contribute a little to your journey in the process.

Eliot Peper on taking risks:

I found this quote in James Clear's 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter. He quotes himself and also other people in it every week and although he had some great quotes by himself on the latest edition, since my last 3 Weekend Wisdom editions (all of them before this one) featured a quote by Mr. Clear, I decided to change things around this week and use one of the quotes by someone else.

This quote is all about taking risks, which makes it very timely since I'm also writing a series of articles on risk management.

So without further ado, let's hear what Eliot Peper has to say:

"If you know something's going to work, it's not worth working on. It requires no courage. It requires no faith. It requires no skin in the game. Whether you're a spy or a teacher or a spouse or a painter or an abuela or an astronaut or a monk or a barista or a board-game designer, the bits that matter are the bits you make matter by putting yourself on the line for them. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world."

Very interesting take here.

To me, it encompasses many famous quotes that people say when talking about comfort zones, growth and things like that.

I'm talking about things such as taking the road less travelled and so on.

From personal experience, leaving the so-called comfort zone is easier said than done. It's called comfort zone for a reason.

However, it's also true that change usually happens when you push the boundaries of that zone. I believe it works differently for everyone but for me, as someone who is very conscious about risk management, that doesn't mean going balls to the wall towards something and hoping for the best, but rather taking smart and calculated risks.

For a long time I watched from the sidelines while less prepared people succeeded because they had the courage to expose themselves to the unknown. And by that I don't mean to bring anyone down or lift myself up. I don't mean those people were worse than me in any way, it's just that, in most cases, I had as much or even more experience and/or knowledge in a particular field but my tendency to avoid confrontation and remain in my comfort zone prevented me from accessing many opportunities.

Not anymore.