Risk Averse

Today I was reading a Investing Magazine. I enjoy watching CNBC and researching stocks and bonds, and playing with strategy and how things go in the financial and business world. We are in a time that more and more people are beginning to avoid risk, and the article I was reading was talking about how it is risk that has made people wealthy, and has led to America being the leader in innovation in the past. Now what is going to happen with the risk aversion.

I bring this up in this blog because I recall writing another paper in college talking about avoiding risk because of a huge fear of failure. A fear so huge, that they actually don't risk at all, by not even taking a chance. I called it the Slacker Excuse. You know that high school kid who is such a big slacker. They aren't willing to admit that they are afraid of failure, but they are as they act as a slacker as an excuse to underachieving.

I remember this happening to me. I never realized it until much later, but through examining my path and choices, I realized that everyone around me told me of my potential, and I feared not living up to that potential, so I took on the characteristic of being a slacker. The phrase that these people hear all the time, "Could you imagine what you could if..." This phrase was normally followed by work hard, put effort towards, or put the time in. For some reason, when I was young, hearing this made me even more afraid of doing the "if part" because what if I didn't live up to the expectation of the result of that extra work or effort.

My paper talked about how this was not only seen amongst young people in sports and school, but that the business world was seeing a slow down in new methods and innovation because failing was looked so bad upon in the business world. One research article asked the question, "where would we be without the scientific method?" You know, come up with an educated Hypothesis, being wrong, and learning from the wrong result. This would then lead to the next hypothesis, and hopefully a result closer to what you wanted, but possibly wrong again. The article concluded that the failure is not an option method has led to less creativity and more unwillingness to do something different to become better.

So back to sports, are we seeing an age of more risk avoidance? Taking a risk is the way someone achieves something great. If you just do what everyone else around does, then are you going to be extraordinary? Do you try to that "extra" on a daily basis to separate yourself from those around you? To be extraordinary, you must be willing to do the "extra" to achieve it. Don't be afraid of not living up to the potential that someone else puts on you. Put forth your best effort, and do your best to not only do what your coach and teacher sets as the bar. Try to clear that bar by as much as possible on a daily basis. Don't be afraid of taking a risk; risk is the way that people separate themselves from the rest.