The game of Risk

I've never played RISK, the board game.

The risk I play with is business risk.

I am not afraid of risk. But I don't like it.

Risk is a girlfriend's nagging mother. Wanting to marry the girl, you have to accept the mother even though she could a deal breaker. The benefit of a wife has to outweigh the cost of her mother to move forward.

In business, we can't measure the benefit when decisions have to be made. So we make best guess estimates. If the estimates are accurate, our decisions will prove to be good. If they are not, our decisions will be poor.

When I was a teenager, kids used to dive off a train bridge into the river. Regardless of the tide and the level of the water, some kids would plunge into the water headfirst with no regard to life. For me the benefit was nothing more than a thrill. Plummeting into water gives the same refreshing feeling regardless of which body part enters first. To me, diving into low tidal waters was reckless.  For me the risk of paralysis or death wasn't worth the thrill, so I never dove.

Some say getting into business is risky.

Poor decisions result in poor results and wise decisions may result in positive results.

But we don't know which one we are making at the decision point. Time is the only teller.

Not doing something has an element of risk as well. And we can't measure that risk until time has also passed.

If a person wants to open a business, the logical people weigh the costs and potential losses of going into business and losing the game.

They consider staying in a job as winning.
We don't measure the costs of staying in a job and losing.
We assume there will always be jobs for us.
We assume things will work out, when we are employed.

We don't make those same assumptions in business.

Keeping a job is perceived as safe, even secure. Only time gives us 20/20 vision. But we can't go backwards. Time only goes forward.

Risk is not the problem. Neither is fear the problem.

An entrepreneur does not love risk. She hates it like everyone else.
She knows how to evaluate it, limit it and act courageously in the face of it.

We have a courage problem.