Expand Your Risk/Reward Boundaries

Back in the Stone Age — my freshman year in college — I needed to make a change. I was in a new place where nobody knew me, and I wanted to "rebrand" myself differently than the shy, insecure, always-the-follower person my high school buddies knew me to be. 



So I began taking strolls through the dorms and was boldly my un-shy-self. One time I heard loud classical music coming from an open door. I walked in, said nothing, wildly conducted the music, then walked out.



That moment completely changed my future. I became known around the quad as goofy, outgoing Beethoven Bill. I became Brother Bill to several of the women in that room — their driver to bars and protector when they were hit on. And one of the women became my girlfriend and eventually my wife.



Photo © Paul Cyr / Barcroft USA via UK Mail Online



I was reminded of that moment when I read Sean Smith's post on 3 Necessary Experiments of Risk and Reward: Control risk, learn to hustle, provide value, earn reward.



Smith writes about three of his un-shy experiments — pretending to be a washroom attendant, being someone's chauffeur through Lyft, and sharing his pad on AirBnB.



He then unpacks each of those experiments into what each one involved:


1. Resources I had.

2. Processes I needed to put in place.

3. Hustle to make it happen.




And then he deftly outlines an awesome approach to expanding one's risk/reward boundaries:


1. Commit to an un-familiar (or otherwise risky) experience.

2. Hustle — using the resources available to you.

3. Use your own process as you see fit, find out your own way using prior observation.

4. Engage with a customer you have never met before.

5. Earn money in real time for the service (or product) you offer.

6. Face possible rejection. (As in pretending to be a washroom attendant: The person could have easily worked at the restaurant and called him out on it immediately.)

7. Succeed or fail, receive feedback to improve processes.



Smith is advising fellow entrepreneurs, and with minor tweaks the same advice is solid for anyone who works.



Similar advice comes from Charlie Connely in Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable . Connely's advice is the same I hear from every leader I've ever interviewed or worked with...

If you look at anybody who has ever achieved success, you will quickly see, they didn’t achieve that by staying within their comfort zone.





No, instead, they continued to push themselves and were willing to risk failure, knowing that the biggest risk is not taking any risk at all.





Can you do that? Can you push past all the "Yeah, but"s? Of course you can. You must!



Where to start? As Smith noted, you can begin outside of your day-to-day job. You can begin with a personal adventure, a goofy moment, and let that moment carry into the rest of your life...




It all starts with a simple “what if I...” — this is where brilliance starts. Where it ends is up to you.