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Why You Should Take More Risks
In the world of business, there is a constant underlying feeling that brick-and-mortar stores are a dying breed.
With the number of high street shops withering and online shops popping up in their place, it seems as though an apocalyptic future is on the horizon, with high streets steadily becoming a scene from The Walking Dead.
As we enter the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, more and more people are using AI to set up businesses, particularly online - and why wouldn’t they? AI has considerably reduced the barrier of entry to many online business pursuits - writing, website design and even YouTube (deepfakes getting frighteningly realistic am I right?).
But as it becomes easier and easier to set up an online business, this is exactly the problem. Ease brings competition. Anyone with an internet connection, a credit card and Jasper AI can write a superficial article on… well… anything.
No research, no experience, just 20 minutes and you’re good to go. While the minimal time investment and minimal risk may feel like a good thing, in this context, I'd argue it's not.
There is a balance to be found between the level of risk and competition because as one goes up the other goes down. Paradoxically this can lead to increasing chances of success with increasing risk, what I am going to term the risk-success paradox.
While the riskiest pursuits often have the least competition, I would like to argue that many of us do not take enough risks and instead prefer to go for the low-hanging fruit. But in our pursuit to minimise risk, we risk even more.
Here are four reasons why I believe we should all take more risks.
Your Competition Scales Too
On the surface, the idea of being able to share your work with hundreds, thousands or even millions of people can sound incredibly appealing and why wouldn't we want to do this? We've put in the work, let's reap the rewards!
But because a lot of people can set up online businesses, a lot of people do. As you pursue online success because you don’t want to be confined to your local area, you forget that reach isn’t the only thing that scales, your competition does too.
As someone trying to make a living writing online, I know this all too well and, while there is certainly more to life than making money, it is worth remembering that the easier the pursuit the more competition there will be.
Paradoxically difficult goals may be easier to achieve.
While hundreds of thousands of people try and make a living through an online business, Bob down the street is already doing so through his coffee shop - with limited scalability and reach.
Being able to utilise leverage and scale to make money was great when only a handful of people knew about it, but the cat is out of the bag now, and your competition knows it.
Push the Envelope
Have you ever met that person who can list one hundred reasons why they shouldn’t pursue their goal, and can’t ever seem to find one reason they should?
Unfortunately for some, the fear of risking their current position is enough to stop them from striving for more - and I’m not talking about the people who are happy with their current position. I’m talking about the incredibly risk-averse people who say they’re happy when in reality they’ve only settled.
I know these people exist because I was one of them, completely unaware of the growth, happiness and yes, sometimes disappointment that taking risks can bring, just living life on autopilot.
One of the reasons I believe people don’t take more risks is because they’ve never experienced the immense satisfaction you feel when you set an obnoxious, unrealistic goal and somehow, against all odds, pull it off. Or they fall at the first hurdle never to get up. A quote often attributed to Winston Churchill springs to mind here “failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”.
If we are afraid to take risks we resign ourselves to being mediocre, being unwilling to strive for more, fail and grow from it. Because each time we fail we don’t start from the beginning, we start from experience. Experience gained through taking a risk to begin with.
Difficulty is the Opportunity
One of my favourite insights I’ve discovered this year comes from the book Unscripted by MJ DeMarco: difficulty is the opportunity. Of all the passages I’ve highlighted in the book, this is the one that has stuck the most because I wholeheartedly believe it to be true - and taking risks is difficult.
The reason the vast majority of us aren’t world class surgeons isn’t that we lack the intelligence — it’s because we have quietly accepted the fact that we do not want the difficulty that comes with such a pursuit and, while that is perfectly okay, the difficulty of the task is what makes the opportunity so great.
It is why world class surgeons, high performing lawyers and NFL players receive ridiculous salaries and opportunities that are simply not available to the majority of us. Because they took the risk to pursue one thing for many years.
But the same applies to less audacious goals, as our risk appetite increases, so does the opportunity.
Risk comes on a spectrum, and we don’t necessarily have to strive for a career in the NFL to find opportunities — opportunities can be found with mediocre levels of risk. In this regard, identifying ventures with a risk level slightly above what you are willing to tolerate currently can be a good way to identify opportunities that are within your reach.
Now, I am not saying go out and invest your entire net worth in crypto, but in a business sense, some level of risk is required to get off the ground.
Ironically, the inherent risk of some ventures can increase the chance of success, and there is no better example of this than brick-and-mortar coffee shops.
Brick and Mortar Certainly Isn't Dead
If you were to ask a friend ‘what business should I start in 2023?’ I’d imagine a coffee shop would rank towards the bottom of their list, after starting an online course, self-publishing an eBook or setting up a YouTube channel.
I believe one reason for this is that many jobs are becoming obsolete thanks to advances in technology. With cashiers being replaced by self-service checkouts and factory workers being replaced by robots, on the surface it may seem as though the future is bleak, with people losing jobs left, right and centre. ‘What next?!’ you ask, concerned about your livelihood and wondering whether you too will be replaced further down the line.
However, I’m here to argue that not everything can be replaced by technology, not in the long run. While currently we may feel that self-service checkouts are great (no more making small talk with checkout operators!), over a longer period I believe we will begin to miss the human interaction.
But what does any of this have to do with risk?
Well in this regard, I believe the risk of going against the grain and thinking outside the box — could be the opportunity you need to make some progress towards your goals. Because you have to ask yourself…
Would you rather have an 80% chance of success at making a 5–6-figure steady income with a — seemingly doomed — brick-and-mortar business, or a 1% chance at making 7 figures online?
Not everything can be replaced by AI. Human interaction and meaningful conversations cannot be replaced by AI, and the risk that people take setting up seemingly outdated businesses could be the difference between success and failure, because this is the risk that others aren’t willing to take.
Then again, I could come back to this in 30 years when humans and robots are no longer distinguishable. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it…
Summary
Over the past three decades there has been a prevailing view that brick-and-mortar stores are dead, and will certainly be obsolete in the future - being replaced by robots and AI. In light of this, many have moved towards what they consider ‘future-proof’ careers such as cybersecurity, UI/UX design or writing code. Ironically, however, we have now reached a point where AI can also write code and design websites.
My point here is that we have absolutely no idea what the future holds. None whatsoever. People who thought their careers were future-proof are now on the verge of being replaced. So if there is something you are interested in, even if it comes with some degree of risk, do it anyway — because that risk might just be an opportunity.
Thank You
If you made it this far thank you — I appreciate you taking the time to read my work and sincerely hope you found it useful. If you would like to continue reading, I’ve included a few of my most popular articles below.
Thanks again,
Rob