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NEVER A SURE THING
Monday Sept. 5, 2016
When we bet on ourselves, we are all in.
Not about risk, reward, handicapping or underwriting outcomes, it’s about belief and commitment. Risk filled. Everything we’ve invested plus mountains of risk, liability and exposure taken on. Worth every dollar, every bead of sweat, every hour of work, every day of commitment.
Should we make big bets?
How can we tell them from small ones?
Every bet on someone is a risk/reward calculation.
Betting on friends or spouses or colleague schemes/partnerships (including marriages) fail to produce spectacular results. Some, but few. Hot stock tips are as unreliable. Is it that we didn’t bet big enough, smart enough, or because we bet on the right horse on the wrong day?
‘At Vegas tables’, easy enough to grasp risk based on how many chips are down.
Business, starts off looking like ‘how much cash am I investing?’, which has nothing to do with what we are creating or risking or committing to. Rarely about cash in, or cash out, but more often a passion or need, or desperation, woven with a ‘unique proposition’ – seasoned with adrenaline shots, elements of tragedy, comedy, fate and farce – lucky ones don’t lose their arse.
Careers, cruel complex brewing – risks/rewards, work, stock-options, faith leaps and tightrope walks, with some safety nets.
Personal relationships, incalculable starts – when someone says, ‘I’d like you to meet _________’. It ends somewhere between nirvana and docket court, between Shangri-la and bankruptcy. For marriage and equivalents, treble that risk. When kids are involved, worth every moment. If not, then it’s often a fool’s errand.
Initial investments have little to do with where something goes or how much life, liberty and legal tender might be involved. Betting on people is never a sure thing. But then, what is?
People have bet on me. Not many. I don’t want to appear ungrateful, because I AM grateful. Along my way some people have loaned their efforts, time or cash to help, to support my adventures. Most were reasonably happy, not unlike my bank lenders, to get their money back. Interest too.
Going all-in, doubling down, putting everything on the line – that’s not something most people will NOT do for us, no matter how much they love us, like us or respect us, they neither have nor want to have any skin in the game.
As much as ‘we of the great ideas’ wish it so from time to time, experience proves nobody will invest that enthusiastically in us if we aren’t prepared to invest even more enthusiastically in ourselves.
There is nothing better in life. Business has its moments, like many things in life – while we might bask in their afterglow, they usually last about seven seconds; then someone asks ‘what’s next?’ or the phone rings or a fresh idea enters the room.
Bet on yourself.
Bet large. Bet everything. Go all in.
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk with Gusta: 3C/38F – brrr … time to break out the mittens; gloomy overcast was parting to reveal crisp blue – Gusta sniffing a trail of something that intrigued her nose but we never found it, though she sure enjoyed the hunt …
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