Risk

# Chapter 178

Risk is relative. People have a broad spectrum of risk, from those who have no tolerance for risk at all, to those who can risk everything over and over. The vast majority of us are huddle in the end of the spectrum where there is little risk - and little reward - and we call ourselves wise. Few there are at the other end of the spectrum where risk is great and so are the potential rewards - and we generally call them fools. We consider them to be strange foolish outliers who defy common sense and who take unnatural risks like daily walks in the park. But the reality is that the real difference is that vast distance in our positions on risk that separate us. Those on the no risk end of the spectrum can’t get their minds around the real risk takers at the other end, and in fact they seem to be strange deranged individuals who don’t consider the realities of life in the same way that the rest of us do.

Yet there they are, and darn it most of them win more than they lose. All of them are wealthier than me and growing their wealth at far fast rates than I am. Even though they lose some, their capacity for loss is far higher than mine. They seem to view losses and gains in a completely different fashion than I do. Their capacity to recover from a loss seems staggering to me. I sit here fretting about the 107,986 shares I have in a worthless company gone bankrupt, while they are out building their next company and network and infrastructure. Losses incapacitate most of us, but energize these rare people on the other end. Gains are hoarded and counted over and over by most of us, while those rare individuals on the other end, just get up and build another company and network and infrastructure. Their losses and gains are just another day.

Seems like some mental shifts are in order.