Ending up miserable or average in life boils down to your ability to embrace risk in your life, here’s what you need to know!
Hello Aluxers and welcome back to the `Sunday Motivational Article!
Everything good in your life will happen as a result of taking the risk of getting it. There is no return without paying the price and the price is taking on the risk of failure.
As a baby, you need to risk falling if you are to learn how to walk. We follow that same trajectory in life and business.
Those who are unwilling to take the risk, face an unfulfilled and mediocre life.
By the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding on what are the most important risks you need to take if you want to get everything you want in life.
While reading this article, don’t risk missing out on the more interesting video version of this text. Switch over to:
As a golden rule in life:
If the reward is bigger than the risk, always take the risk!
See what happens.
With that as our cornerstone, let’s get started!
1
Risk Getting Incredibly Wealthy
– especially if you’re young.
If you’re under 35 you get 1 or 2 big swings at an extraordinary life. This happens because you have little to no downside: there’s no one depending on you.
This is by far the most important piece of advice you can get as a young person. TAKE BIG RISKS!
You wanna hear something that will outrage the close-minded people?
Everyone who actually wants to be rich can become rich!
Absolutely.
There are over 50 million millionaires and thousands of new billionaires. We’re gonna soon have our first trillionaire. There’s no limit to the wealth you can get in this life.
And honestly, the sooner you solve the money issue in life, the better.
When it comes to both life and financial risks:
If you don’t play the risk game while you’re young you’re going to play the blame game while you’re old.
2
Risk Getting the Person of Your Dreams
Risk putting yourself out there. Risk telling people how you feel. Go for the perfect 10.
Build the life you always wanted to build next to the right person.
There’s a risk in settling for what’s easy and available. Most people are unhappy in their choice of life partners and this is the sole result of being scared to take the risk of finding the right one.
For them, the risk of ending up alone is higher than the perceived return of an amazing spouse.
Long term, their insecurity only grows resulting in troubled households and poor parenting.
It’s the mindset and the soul of the person that’s going to go the distance, not the money or good looks!
3
Risk Ridicule in Exchange for Making Your Dreams Come True
Criticism and ridicule are part of the process.
Think of it as the cost of entry to the joyride that is the good life.
Who cares what they think?! Who cares if they don’t like you? You don’t even like THEM!
People are intimidated by those who go after it.
They’re scared of seeing other people succeed because it serves as proof that success is achievable. Their only hope is to intimidate you into giving up on your dreams, so you don’t get the chance to prove them wrong.
The risk fades away when you realize that these people are irrelevant to your journey, even if they’re part of your inner circle and their words might hurt.
4
Risk Dropping Out or Quitting to Start Your Own Business
Here’s a gold nugget that’s gonna change your life forever. It’s called the simulated outcome theory.
Here’s how it works: look at the way your life is going right now and imagine doing what you’re doing for the next 10 years. What does your life look like if you progress in a linear fashion?
If you’re happy with the result, keep doing what you’re doing. But what if you realize this future sucks?
A brutal change to your timeline needs to happen. Become a variant!
That’s when you drop out or quit your job in order to start living life on your terms.
You will end up working longer hours, but you’ll have the satisfaction that you’re building for yourself.
For as long as you live you need to remember:
If you don’t build your own dreams, someone else will hire you to build theirs!
When starting a business, it’s safest to only take the unavoidable risks. Check out 10 Ways to Minimize RISK in Business.
5
Risk Investing in Yourself
People complain that investing in yourself is expensive… but what the hell is the alternative?! What is there to invest that gives you a better ROI than…well.. YOU?!
If you’re unable to at least invest in yourself where you control the outcome, how do you expect any other investment to work out?!
This is a wake-up call! Treat your investment in yourself the same way venture capital works: Some will be shit, some will be ok but one or two of them will be life-changing.
We’ve read hundreds of bad books before finding the few that worked well for us.
We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars going to events, seminars, courses, classes and meet-ups in order to compound our knowledge and build a network that would eventually become partners in future investments.
Our mission here at ALUX is to bring the same expensive lessons and advice to everyone around the world, for free.
This is why so many people subscribe to us and if you haven’t we encourage you to support our journey as well.
Ask yourself:
What percentage of your income do you reinvest in yourself?
We’re not talking about your comforts, but in your skills set, your knowledge and your tools of the trade. If you’re spending less than 5% on you… it might be a good time to re-evaluate your priorities.
A good place to start is courses.alux.com
All our courses are designed around skills that keep compounding for the rest of your life. What you’d normally spend thousands of dollars for, we’ve curated, optimized and delivered for a fraction of the cost. We reinvest everything into making our mission a reality.
The brutal truth is:
Your life is cheap because you think investing in yourself is expensive!
6
Risk Starting Over
Even if you’re starting from scratch.
Even if it’s in a new place.
Even if you know nobody.
Even if no-one supports you.
Risk starting over. It will be scary because it’s always scary when you venture into the unknown. But you see, Darkness is the mere absence of light!
The moment you overcome your fear, you begin to generate light into the darkness of your world. The more you do and learn the brighter you shine.
Deep down we’re all scared of our luminosity!
But it’s a necessary part of success.
You might be thinking it’s easy to say this when we don’t know your story, but we actually know you, because we’ve been you and we’ve seen your story in other people as well. Every single one of us is manifest against realities we do not like and choose to build our own. So trust that you can do it as well. It might not be obvious to you at the moment, but if starting over is your objective, the road will reveal itself to you.
We want to leave you with this:
If you see nothing around you but walls, start building a door by knocking down some!
7
Risk Being Honest
With yourself and everyone else.
You have to be honest. The alternative is to be a liar, and history has been unkind to liars, even the petty ones.
Dishonesty is just the delay of the truth but with worse repercussions!
Stop saying things you don’t mean.
Stop saying YES when you actually want to say NO.
Stop living a lie and most importantly, stop lying to yourself!
The only way up is to find the truth and build from it.
There’s a risk in judgment when telling the truth or showing your vulnerability, but every lie incurs a debt to the truth and a burden to carry with you for the rest of your life.
Admit you need help!
It takes some serious balls and dedication to improving yourself to be vulnerable like that.
8
Take Risks under Your Own Name
This is one of the recent lessons we’ve learned that has dramatically changed the way we approach risks. We’re proud of the work we do and we want to be proud of the outcome.
Always assume risk under your own name! Be accountable.
It’s a risky move because if you fail, you’re faced with the ridicule of those on the sidelines, but if you win, you win everything. Everyone knows success is on you. You made it happen.
Too few people are accountable. Very few assume risk under their own name, but everyone we know that’s done anything worthwhile has put their face, name, reputation on the line. That’s how greatness is built!
9
Risk Being in the Public Eye
The evolution of the previous point is acting in the public eye. This is where everyone begins to look at you..
There’s a conflicting thing happening within each and every one of us, that on one hand wants the world to acknowledge us, we want to be seen, but not looked at in detail and analyzed.
That’s the paradox of fame. The better you are at what you do the more fame comes your way. Fame is not the problem, but the celebrity status that comes with it.
You want to be famous for what you do, but not become a celebrity!
We think there’s a sweet spot between the two.
It took us years to understand that there’s value in fame, in being in the public eye. It opens doors for you that would’ve been closed otherwise – not because you were not worth walking through them, but the doorman didn’t know about you.
Invest in your image, assume risk under your own name, say what you will do, and do what you say, but don’t get caught up in the whirlwind of status-signaling.
If you look in the mirror and see a label on your forehead, your descent has already begun.
Stay humble but do phenomenal work!
10
Risk Going against the Consensus and Be Right
This is the straightforward path to massive success in life.
The more you think about it, the more you realize it is true:
If you want to be successful in life, you have to go against the consensus -what everybody thinks- and be right!
People will tell you that something is impossible, they’ll tell you to not even try because it won’t work, you’re not good enough, smart enough, talented enough, not born in the right country, not born with the right parents, skin color, gender or simply.. that nobody was able to do it.
The thing is:
Everything is impossible until someone does it!
Our growing wealth is the result of ignoring everybody else and focusing on the process.
We said this before, but if we’re living in a simulation then self-belief is the cheat code to getting everything you want. Risk believing in your idea and following through.. You’d be amazed by what you find at the end of your rainbow.
11
Risk Bringing Change to Your Inner Circle and Community
Whenever you introduce a new idea to any group of people you will get immediate pushback. Nobody likes change, but change is necessary! – for growth, for survival… for long-term happiness.
They love the status quo, they love stability because stability doesn’t require them to alter their behavior. “I’m not getting killed by a lion doing what I’m doing right now… so why do you ask me to change.. Who knows that dangers lie in the darkness of the unknown?!”
But it’s thanks to the people who don’t listen to the masses, those who are keen on optimizing life for efficiency, comfort, and progress.
It is only after you’ve changed their life that people figure out what kind of impact you actually had.
This is why most artists, inventors, and creators are more appreciated posthumously.
12
Risk Being Yourself When Everyone Wants You to Be Someone Else
Who are you? You’re more than your clothes, the things you buy, the home you live in.
You’re more than what your parents taught you when you were 7 years old.
You’re more than the trauma you’ve suffered growing up.
You’re an individual! You’re separate from everything else. You’re not what your uncle thinks you are or should be. You’re not what your parents wish you were. You’re not what your friends see you as. You’re not even all of those things combined.
You’re an ever-changing identity that absorbs what it needs and finds useful in order to craft itself out of pure chaos!
The moment you realize how short life is and how meaningless the expectations of others are in terms of real impact on your existence, the second phase of your life begins That of finding who the hell you are and then living as that person!
Risk being yourselves Aluxers, life is too damn short to go through it pretending you’re somebody else.
13
Risk Finding Your True Limits
Wanna know a brutal truth? Most people quit at 40% of their ability.
As humans, we fail to understand our true limits because our mind and body is designed to shelter us from harm and into comfort as quickly as possible.
Most people go through life never knowing what they can do. They choose to underperform, doing the universe a big disservice. You were put on this planet to find out what you’re capable of.. Going to the grave without discovering that is just wasted potential.
Why are you scared to find out? What do you quit before your limits? What don’t you test yourself to see how far you can go?
Something extraordinary happens if you do..
You find the truth!
You find where your ability stands at this point in your life. You have a clear benchmark. From work to life, to relationships, go the extra mile and make them extraordinary.
For the man who risks finding his own limits, the world opens up with limitless opportunities!
14
Risk Having Your Own Metrics for Success
Here’s the paradox of success:
Success is a self-fulfilling game!
The only real way to win is to decide that you have won the game.
Otherwise, you will be in constant pursuit of something that you’ll never catch up with.
Even if you achieve what other people consider success if it’s not your own consideration you will not feel like you’ve made any progress in life.
This is how people end up hating their lives despite having a high-profile job or making a lot of money. If it doesn’t meet your own metrics for success you will feel like a failure, like you could’ve done more or be happier doing something else.
People will judge you based on their own metrics… please note that you are under no obligation to live by them! Risk having your own metrics.. That’s what the phrase: “YOU DO YOU!” actually means.
15
Risk a Bad Meal to Find the Magical One
Tony Bourdain said that and it stuck with us.
We know you weren’t expecting a food reference at this point in the talk, but this is actually a deep metaphor for life.
You have to risk going through the bad in order to find the exceptional.
You don’t know where the magic is in life, but it won’t find you, you have to go look for it. Look everywhere you think you might be able to find it. Most will be disappointments, but once in a while, you will stumble upon something that made the entire search worth it. These are the life-changing pieces of the puzzle that makes up your existence.
Do you know why this is true? Because:
Unearned prizes bear no value!
In a screwed-up way, the bad justifies you being deserving of the good. You truly appreciate a good meal if you’ve been eating shit for a while. You really appreciate a good job if you’ve been working miserable ones for the past few years. You will never take for granted a loyal partner if your previous one tore your heart to shreds…
If you want to win this freaking game, you have to embrace risk. You won’t get many chances! Time has picked up speed and we know you feel it too. The next few years will go by in the blink of an eye.. Don’t regret it!
Question:
Embrace risk, we know that at some point in your past you did and because of it your life is now better. Share that story with us in the comments:
When was the last time you took a risk and it worked out?
Allow other people to learn from your journey and maybe you’ll learn some from theirs!
That wraps up our 15 Most Important Risks You Must Take in Life article and we hope this was a valuable read for you!
