“Most great people have achieved their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”
-Napoleon Hill (author of Think and Grow Rich)
PARADIGM SHIFT
Risk Buys Experience — And That’s Valuable!
Stock investing is risky by nature.
But unless you own a material share in the company, you never have to touch its operations or decision-making. Others run the company for you, and you hear about it after the fact.
Investing in your own business is even riskier. But you have full control. And you have more insight than anyone else into the prospects of its success.
That control and “insider knowledge” gives you an edge that stocks don’t.
We often talk about risk in a broad, sweeping way. But the risk of stock and business are primarily financial. What could you lose if things go the other way? Well, money of course!
But when weighing the risk, don’t forget that you have the choice of whether or not to learn and benefit from experience.
It’s easy to measure money. You have it. Then you have a lot more, or a lot less. Measurability means that monetary factors can influence our decisions more than they should.
It’s not easy to measure the value in skill, character, mindset and strategy. But all of these things will transform and develop inevitably when you take risks with a humble and open mind.
In his book The Only Three Questions That Count, investor Ken Fisher teaches that, in order to learn, we must embrace both humility and regret. Let me explain.
The stock market is a particularly infamous conduit that uses our worst biases against us. If we don’t learn how to admit our past mistakes (rather than ignore them to avoid regret) and humble ourselves to learn from them, then we will continue to fall into the same traps over and over again.
This is true of stock investing. The truth is magnified when it comes to running a business.
But here’s what I’m getting at: risk does not have to be comprehensive.
There is always going to be monetary risk. But you don’t have to risk losing out on the benefits of experience. You have control over that.
Because regardless of the external outcome of the venture, your value as an investor, business owner or even employee can be radically transformed through the real-world experience of taking on calculated risks.