Is fear holding you back from taking risks that might bring you happiness or growth?
Here’s the scenario. You want to gain some reward — by learning to scuba dive, perhaps, or by starting your own business — but eventually you back down because of the risk involved. Even though you could gain an incredible amount of joy or happiness doing it, diving could also cause your untimely death in several horrible ways. Or if you sink everything you have into a business venture, you might lose it all despite your best efforts and find yourself on the street. It’s pretty common to fear such outcomes, and millions of people fail to pursue their dreams because of it. A little education can cure that, however.
Success is Not Without Risk
In discussing the nature of risk taking, I will use the example of entrepreneurship. It serves as a good example because, last I checked, there were still millions of unhappy employees out there dreaming of but not starting their own businesses.
Millions of people want desperately to quit the employed life and run a business of their own, but few do. Some people even come close to taking bold action, but they back out at the last minute. Then the years roll on and all of those dreams are lost to what jaded grown-up types call, bitterly, “the idealism of youth.”
It’s hard enough to decide what you really want in life, but it’s even worse to know what you want and be even a little reluctant to take the steps needed to get there. The fearful, of course, are always ready with a list of potential problems (although if they keep you from taking action, then they’re called excuses).
If you quit your job and start your own business, a thousand things could go wrong. You might make less that you’re making now. You might change your mind about being on your own, and then never find a good job again. You might invest years of effort and all of your savings and more, working fourteen hours a day, only to find yourself bankrupt.
Any one little thing could sink your business: a downturn in the economy, competition that’s better than you, competition that’s worse than you but has better connections, a bad client, no clients. It can be scary to balance so precipitously between failure and success.
It can be hard not to panic when you have been looking, searching, pleading for new business for the better part of a year and you reach a point where you have only two months of living expenses left in the bank. Believe me, I know exactly what it’s like.
Most people don’t want to experience serious discomfort, so they don’t attempt anything fear inducing. They remain comfortable where they are — as comfortable as they can be, looking down the road ahead and seeing only meaningless work at a slow pace for decades until they die. Either that, or you retire into near-poverty.
Seeking a greater reward exposes you to both a greater risk of failure and a greater magnitude of failure. Yet you might achieve more success and more happiness than you thought possible. It’s tough to be on the edge, always balancing a few degrees between either failure or success. If more people understood the nature of that balancing act, they might stay in the game.
Learning to Skate
Balancing between failure and success in life is a lot like learning to skate.
I took up the great sport of hockey as an adult, so I know some things about learning to skate. It takes some serious time, energy, and self-discipline to get good enough to even be able to participate in a game. Three days a week, I attend hockey practice at 6 am. My class is taught by a really great coach who normally works with elite players, from school age on up to college and professional players. This early morning session is just for adults learning to play hockey. Some of us are total beginners, some can skate and shoot with the skill of a college athlete, and the rest of us are somewhere in between.
I see a lot of hockey player wannabes hanging around rinks and watching their kids skate. I’ve seen other people try skating a few times, and then give up despite liking it. In both cases, the reason for not staying on the ice is often some version of “I’d like to do it, but I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to hurt myself.”
Learning to skate actually requires falling. Besides, the nature of skating makes it extremely easy to do so.
Each skate blade has two sharp edges and a hollowed-out center. It is these razor thin edges, and not the whole blade, that you actually skate on.
It’s all about the edges. When you’re skating around a circle at high speed, crossing one foot over the other, for instance, you put all of your weight on a single edge, leaning your body into the center of the circle, alternating your feet. Much skating happens on one edge at a time.
It is precarious business. If you lean too far one way, you’ll lose the edge and fall and slide across the ice. Lean too far the other way, and the edge will dig into the ice, tripping you, making an even worse fall.
Lots of people never learn to skate because they are fearful of slipping off one of those edges and falling. So they sit in the bleachers where they feel safe. I call it being deprived of experiencing Newton’s laws in a really dramatic way. 
Falling (and Failing) is Part of the Game
If you’re not on the ice, then you’re merely a spectator. To me, spectators always look cold and bored. I am always amazed at the number of people who take their kids to an open ice session and then proceed to hang around and watch other people have fun for an hour. How could anybody show up at an ice rink and not skate? How could they not even take a few steps and learn, however gradually? Spectators view the exciting world of ice skating from the outside. They have to be content with watching others participate in having fun and developing a skill. That’s what the fear of falling — or failing — will do to you.
Failure, however, is not so bad. In learning to skate, failure usually means losing an edge and sliding across the ice. This is entirely necessary if you are to learn the skills. By attempting to push beyond the limits of your ability, you sometimes fall — but when you do, you also overcome that limitation and increase your ability. Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, and Sidney Crosby didn’t get to be so great by not exploring the limits of their abilities. That includes plenty of falling. Even the pros do it.
Better yet, falling usually does not hurt at all. If a skater is traveling fast enough when he loses an edge, he simply slides across the ice, carried forward by his momentum. Eventually you get good enough to catch yourself athletically, get up in mid-fall, and go on skating. Most of the time.
Failure is not Permanent
Falling in hockey is similar to failing in life, or in our example, entrepreneurship. When you attempt something great, every now and then you will fail, just as when you attempt a new skating move, every now and then you will fall.
In business, failure sometimes means going broke or showing up in bankruptcy court one fine day to watch some lawyers unravel what took years to build. Let’s return to the skating analogy. You fall (fail). So where is the rule that says you can’t get up and start all over again, just like when you’re learning to skate? Next time, maybe you’ll get a little closer to collapsing, but you’ve learned to save yourself in mid-stride. Failure is not permanent, as people often imagine it to be.
The only permanent failure is the one you choose, either by giving up, or by not making the attempt in the first place.
Choosing to Balance on the Edge
Don’t allow the fear of failure keep you from taking risks, just as potential hockey players get scared off the ice by their fear of falling. Balancing on an edge is a learnable skill. You can learn to skate just as well as you can learn to support yourself without a job, scuba dive without killing yourself, or anything else.
Guess what? Success actually requires you to balance on an edge. Being close to failure is not an exception; it’s normal.
Success is not about reaching a point where you don’t have to worry about failing (or falling). Success means being on that edge all the time while staying calm and moving forward. It will always be this way.
If you choose to take the risk of balancing on the thin edge between success and failure, whether in skating or in life, then a whole world of growth and happiness opens up to you. It’s a risk worth taking.
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