I was bullied at school, not majorly but enough to make a year or so unpleasant. I once challenged the bully to sort it out but cried before the fight could start. It probably was a good survival technique as a prefect’s attention was caught and the fight stopped before it started. I was not a brave child. But, on reflecting back, since I was 18, I have made some big calls.

  • I travelled abroad alone when I was just 18 because my travelling mate decided to stayed on at the well-paying holiday job I had found for both of us.
  • I lived on my own, in my last year at university, so I could concentrate on my study.
  • My wife (23) and I (25) emigrated to New Zealand from the UK, sight unseen. It was 13,000 kilometres away from family, friends and my last place of work.
  • I broke contract at the New Zealand firm that had me bonded because their promises were not being met.
  • I gave up a well-paying job to dedicated a year to marketing two inventions in the USA and the UK that could have reaped pots of gold. Instead, I earnt absolutely nothing.

Steps you can take

  1. There are times when you will need to make big calls and trust in your judgement. It is a different type of bravery. It is not the skydiving or bungy jumping type of bravery. It is a bravery born out of confidence in your capability.
  2. It is the ability to take a step outside of your comfort zone that will come to define you as a human being. You can be good within your comfort zone but often you will only ever become great when you have challenged yourself by tackling the unknown.
  3. Life is hard enough without adding to the burden by doubting your abilities. Dream big, and those dreams will become visions and those visions in turn become reality. I discuss NLP in a separate article.

Taking calculated risks

The key word here is ‘calculated’. This requires you to research the topic and to go back in history to see what has happened in the past before you take action.

There are normally ways you can mitigate the amount of risk you take. Instead of renting a new premises for a new enterprise you can instead rent some space from a business that has spare capacity. It simply means a bit of leg work.

There is a good proverb, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” Whilst there are stories of entrepreneurs risking everything and succeeding there are also the less exciting stories of successful people who took a more cautious approach. No business is worth risking poverty if it does not come off.

This is an extract from a self help book I have written “Don’t say I never told you” www.patstormbooks.com