Risk

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk rejection
To place your dreams before a crowd is to risk ridicule
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds
is to risk failure
But risks must be taken
because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing
does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrows,
but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave -he has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who takes risks is free.

You Are The Solution: A Proactive Approach To Problem Solving

When you hear the word problem, what comes to your mind and how do you feel? It’s amazing the multiplicity of problems compared to the scarcity of solution. However, in this unique mix of problem and solution, problem is the norm, not solution.

But the real issue here is with the term problem which most people see as negative. As a matter of fact problems are believed to be negative. Contrary to popular belief problems are actually positive. Though we see problem as an evil designed to halt us on our stride to success. In other fields problems are literally the process to achieving a goal. So when we say, here’s the problem. We are literally saying, here’s the progress plan or platform to progress. But that’s not where I’m heading at. I only brought that concept to illustrate the amazing power people have to make negative out of normal. Because how we see a thing, what we believe about it affects how we act towards it or react to it. Such false representations and interpretations could actually deprive you of the advantage you stand to gain in the face of great opportunity in disguise of problems. To correct these false impressions, here are some points to consider.

• When you see problem think solution. You begin to flounder when you think one without the other. We actually call it worry. The truth is, there’s no problem without a solution, it’s like light and darkness. You can’t know one without the other (at least here on earth). The real problem as I see it is that we focus too much on the problem.

• Think you can, believe only in possibility. If only what you believe is possibility, then you leave no room and time in your creative mind impossible thoughts to be nurtured. There are two kinds of people, those who encounter problems and are discouraged and those who are turned on when they meet challenges. Yes most things are difficult but you must rid yourself of that negative power of turning difficult situations into impossible ones. Don’t coil in when you hear impossible rather come to life.

• Associate more with people who think solution when they hear problem. We are influenced by the relationships we keep and the books we read. Associate more with people who come to life at every difficulty and less with those who die by it.

On becoming a solution, I have one word for you which encapsulate the whole matter. Nobody is better positioned or more qualified to solve a problem than the one who discovered it (at least in the beginning). Most people identify problems and begin to promote it. You don’t solve a problem by focusing on it nor do you by generating attention to it. If you do, you increase the problem. The reason is because you then attract more people into the problem. Is that not right you ask? Well no, guess what most people are willing to readily share, their problems. So what do you do? When you identify a problem, take good note of it and forget it. Yes, just forget it (in the literal sense).

Now begin to focus on the solution. Such that you only think and talk of the solution. When you eventually get people involved, you are not inviting them into the problem, you are now involving them in the solution. Isn’t that interesting? It’s important how people get into the matter than the fact that they are just in it. For instance you have some nice looking, well dressed persons in your parlor and someone begins to point out who came in through the window, and who came through the door. Wouldn’t you begin to doubt their presence and appearance?

So you want to get people into the matter from the angle of its solution not the problem. Here are some steps that could help.

1. Understand that you are the seed of the solution to a problem you identify
2. Never neglect a problem no matter how little until you assign a solution to it by writing and then document it please.
3. It takes higher thought and effort to solve a problem than it took to create it.
4. Ideas are key to creative problem solving. Never neglect one no matter how silly or little it seems.
5. Share the solution not the problem, you must have come up with something near the solution at least before you even take the identification out. That way you prove that you are committed to a solution.

There are problems everywhere and that’s absolutely normal, it’s not going to change. But this is far from the last to be said on this subject. 

“If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem”. - Anonymous

SEED OF THE DAY: EVERYTHING IS RISKY

Everything is risky, if you look at the problems you see difficulty, if you focus on the possibilities you will find opportunity.

Risk of Losing The Gain

Beware of the statement, ‘You have nothing to lose’. That statement is highly questionable. One who has nothing to lose in pursuit of what he wants is really poor. Because one rule of getting is giving, which may come most times as loss. If nothing is lost, in most cases nothing can be gained. Therefore I question the popular belief ‘you have nothing to lose but all to gain’. No no, I say that’s robbery. If you really have nothing to lose, then you are really poor, in fact you should be avoided because you are dangerous. Nothing to lose? Not family, not personality, not character, not comfort?
If you put in nothing you can only take out nothing. If nothing is lost, nothing can be gained. Be careful with this statement however. Because most people think it the other way round, for them to gain, some other must lose. Not true. The loss is not from another but a sacrifice you pay to gain the good you seek. You may lose comfort, some privileges and in most cases some valuables in pursuit of what you want. Living in such denial does no good to the gain. Don’t be faked out with the claim that you have nothing to lose. Such denial will only lead to greater loses. But the key is knowing that which you have, your values and valuables and to treat them as such. So you don’t stand the risk of losing the greater good for lesser gains.
The quickest way to lose your valuables is not to know that you have one.
The only set of people in our beautiful earth who really have nothing to lose lay fast at rest; even when clad with the most gorgeous clothing or adorned with costly pearls they really don’t care. They alone really have nothing to lose. But until the living attain the inevitable, we all have something to lose.

Seed of the Day

A is for Accountability: Knowing what comes in, what goes out, how it does and why. Accountability is arguably the first port of call for every leader. For some it's with resources, it may be money or even people. Whatever the case may be for you, take the responsibility to see that by your care and effort, you can account for them all.
Don't allow negligence rob you of the good you stand to gain. You can't take that risk in leadership, it's too costly.

Quote of the Day: You Just Have to Risk it Sometimes

Increase Your Capacity to Receive

To whom much is given much is expected. He who seeks to receive must first create the capacity to receive that which he seeks. Too often than naught the tendency like I observe, reclines towards asking first to be given rather than creating the capacity to receive. The unfortunate eventuality with the first is that we get what we want but may never have/keep it or make best use of it. Eventually the much you receive is only tantamount to the capacity you have created to receive. It all revolves around the principle of first thing first. It’s like the lady who dearly sought for job, but lost it as soon as she got it. The reason is obvious, not that she asked what was too much for her to handle but that she did not first create the capacity to receive what she wanted. You risk losing what you ask when you get it, if you don’t first create the capacity to receive it. If it turns out that you are not fit for the job you have undertaken give it up and find another, better still refine yourself or adjust the job until it comes within your capability while you work on your competence, or else you will get progressively less suitable. A pilot may not be able to change the direction of the wind but he can very well adjust the positions of his ruder to maximize the dynamics of the wind for his movement. It answers much in drawing closer to the idea that opportunity abounds plenty not only to receive but to increase efficiency, to make far reaching impact because you have first created the capacity to receive. But it begins with a paradigm shift, from seeking what you can get to asking what you can give.

It’s funny sometimes how people think of giving when it’s talked about. I have never seen one give what one does not have. The golden rule of giving tells us that it’s always coming back to you what you have given. So the question you should be asking is; what have I given myself that I can give back to others? If you are sincere with this question you will learn to give more time to the improvement of yourself not for what you want to get but what you want to give. You owe a responsibility not just to yourself but to your immediate surroundings and possibly a wider community to improve yourself, because whether you know it or not another’s improvement and eventual success is tied to you living up to your responsibility improvement wise.

The world wants to meet you. If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor said Emerson, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. Here is a summary of all that has been said.

1.       There is plenty opportunity to increase your capacity
2.        Ask what you can give first and let every other thing find its place
3.        You can’t give what you don’t have
4.        Give yourself such that you can’t hold back from giving out that which your have
5.        The much you have is the much you have created capacity to receive
6.        There is no lack of opportunity for service, only lack of ability to serve
7.        Be a channel not a container. You put a limit to this capacity the moment you start thinking and functioning like a bucket rather than a hose.

Ask first what you can give, not what would be given you and you will open yourself to a wider horizon of opportunities.

Is It Worth The Risk?

They say anything worth doing is worth doing well. But I will not be wrong to add that anything worth doing is worth the risk. It’s commonplace to think of risk as something that must be avoided, but it’s more ridiculous to consider people who do as inept, uncoordinated heads, people who speculate rather than strategize. Well if you think that way, I think you need a second thought; life in itself is a risk. Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T.S. Eliot.

Some say they don’t take risk but even if they have to, it has to a calculated one. Whether risk is calculated or impulsive will only change its flavor of conception but not the color of its nature. Because man is not God he will now and then need to venture into uncertainties; though man is so gifted and intelligent that he can predict the future to a certain degree of accuracy; he has the ability to contrive what is and decipher the outcome of what I will call the cause consequence effect.

Everyone has that instinct of creativity even though not everyone digs into it it; and anyone who would exploit it would perhaps encounter some sort of uncertainties in his quest to create. The biggest risk is to run from a risk that you must have to face in order to achieve the best. And that’s the why I see risk as necessary. The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success – B.C. Forbes. Good is good but better is better. One who has the habit of avoiding risk irrespective of the beneficial good it could have on humanity stands little chance to add any meaningful value to life. `Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness;' Judges 14:14. Some things just wait for the taking.

Why do you beat sleep and wake up each morning, brush up yourself and do what you do? For all obtainable reasons, I would put it in one statement; you want to satisfy your basic human need. The need of love, satisfaction expression, recognition, responsibility, security etc. one would usually take any risk be it calculated or otherwise in order to hold one’s own. Nobody would want to take any extra risk when these needs are conveniently met

Most people tend to exploit their potential the most in an air of freedom and security. In life, risk is always a commonality and a factor, whether you get hard at work in order to avoid them or you face them fare and square to meet the needs or achieve the best.

Cause And Consequences; How to Achieve Optimal Results

When it happens like bang, what quickly become obvious are the consequences, and rarely the cause. And when the cause eventually comes to mind, we tend to excuse it with the urgent demands of the obvious (consequence). Common sense tells us that the best way to solve a problem is to treat its cause and its consequence. But do we always look in the direction of the cause when the consequence is quite obvious and calling? Reminds me of Derek Prince during World War II while he was serving as a medical orderly with the British forces in North Africa, and I quote,

A British soldier had come into our reception station with a shrapnel wound caused by a bomb exploding near him. He took off his shirt exposing a small puncture wound in his shoulder. The edge of the wound was slightly black. Thinking of the ready to use sterile dressing that was part of our medical equipment, I said to the medical officer, “shall I get a first field dressing, sir?”
“No, that’s not what’s needed,” the doctor replied. “Bring me a probe.” The doctor had the man sit on a chair. Then he struck the little silver stick into the man’s wound and wiggled it around gingerly for a few moments. Suddenly the man let out a yelp and goes up in the air. “Now fetch me the forceps,” the doctor said. I gave him the forceps which he inserted into the wound in the area where the probe had located a foreign body. Cautiously he extracted a little piece of black metal. After cleaning the wound, he finally said to me, “Now you can bring the dressing.”
Afterward he explained, “You see, the piece of shrapnel that caused the puncture was still there. If you just cover that shrapnel up with a dressing without removing it, it will be a continuous source of infection and will cause further complications.”

Now on the other aspect of cause and consequences, is the Pareto principle or the 80-20 rule. Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th century economist postulated that a large share of wealth is owned by a small percentage of the population. Put more simply, 80 percent of consequences are as a result of 20 percent of causes. Now, how can this apply to goals and personal achievement?

I often tend to push myself to an extent on the cause effect issues; though it’s a sort of character test. I strive to achieve 80 percent of results with 20 percent of required time. Very demanding, you would say; but very helpful as well, especially in restoring focus, concentration and determination in producing results for a given task.
If principles are said to be natural laws, then the Pareto principle will be an effective tool that could transform ones effectiveness and consequently ones life. Knowing that we need 20 percent of our engagements to yield 80 percent of the results needed, the question is, “out of the many things we do or can do, what is that 20 percent that will produce the 80 percent result that we need? In other words, what are the most important things in your life that would create the defining results? Can you draw a line between the 80 percent less effective things and the 20 percent effective ones?

You can separate the few major problems from the many possible problems so you can focus your improvement efforts, arrange them according to priority or importance, and determine which problems are most important using data, not perception.