What Would You Do If There Were No Risk?

I used to tell myself, “Money takes away risk.”  If you have enough money, you can do what you want, you can say what you want, you can be what you want.  I would tell myself that if I didn’t have to worry about losing my job and thereby my financial security, I could really work the way I want to.  I wouldn’t worry about what people thought of the way I did things.  At work, I would run my team the way I thought I should.  I would focus on the things I thought were most important and I wouldn’t worry about people telling me how to talk, how to think, how to look and how to act.  If only.  If only I had enough money that there were no risk in losing my job.  Then I would do that job the way I thought best.  I’d use my talents and the best of my skills, and in so doing I would ENJOY my work.

So I went on worrying.  I went on and listened to the advice about joking too much, letting my sense of humor show too much, it was reflecting badly on me.  People thought I couldn’t have a hard conversation with an employee, though I did this at a rate much greater than other managers.  I listened to the people who said I wasn’t focusing on the right things in my job.  The impact of this was that I was told that I was good where I was, but I was a long way from ready to go to “the next level”.  I listened to the feedback about me being a good hard worker that people could count on and so I should be happy where I was.

Because there was risk and a lot of it, I got serious.  I turned off my personality.  I tried to become like everybody else.  I tried to shoehorn myself into the corporate mold.  I lost my smile, I lost my motivation and in the end, I still lost my job.

Did you see what happened there?  There never was any risk.  I could have always done what I wanted to do.  I suppose I might have found that my job ended sooner that way, but if it’s going to end anyway isn’t sooner better than later?  Might as well get on with it, right?  Hanging on to a bad situation – whatever that situation – yields nothing worth having.  Don’t read this wrong.  I don’t blame anyone for me not being true to myself, but me. 

Today, my advice is do your job the way you want to.  Live your life the way you want to.  Let your personality shine and light up every room you walk into.  If that’s a light the people in the room don’t like, they’ll leave the room.  And on the off chance that it’s you who feels uncomfortable, move to another room as fast as you can.

So what about you?  What would you do differently if there were no risk?  What would you do if you weren't afraid?  Would you do your job differently?  Would your relationships be different?  Would you learn new things?  Would you skydive?  Would you write that book you’ve always had rolling around in your mind?  Would you start a business?  Would you pursue that dream job even if it paid you less?

I’m telling you, there is no risk.