Ever heard someone say “I’m just not a risk taker” or “I can’t afford to take that risk?”

Yet that same person will jump into a car, drive out on to a road at over 50mph relying on a painted white line on the tarmac to stop other cars crashing into them.

Interesting.

As a business by labelling yourself as “not risk taker” you are essentially saying “I’m ready to be eaten alive by my competition.”

You see you have to keep improving, changing and evolving to thrive and grow in this super competitive business world in which we operate.

The problem is that with any change danger involved as you are stepping into the relatively or often totally unknown.

As young children growing up we are conditioned to avoid danger.

But you can’t have growth without that element of danger. You cannot seek improvement without risking something. You cannot change whilst being the same.

The most successful businesses are danger seekers and risk takers as they understand in the pursuit of greatness you cannot opt to stay safe.

If you want an example just look to apple and the launches of the iPod and iPad which revolutionised the tech market.

Do you think that if apple had just created a better version of the Disc man,  invented just an mp3 player or perhaps spruced up their laptop range that the impact would have been as huge as it was?

Of course not.

At the time apple did not know 100% how the market would react or how successful the products would be.

Now you may not be a company the size of apple but the lesson is the same.

In order to dominate the market, to grow and reap the rewards of success you have to take risks.

Now not all risks pay off – there is no guarantee that ideas will work – there never can be but without risk there is no opportunity.

A fellow speaker Dr Nido Qubein once said “Not all change leads to improvement but all improvement is always as a result of change”