Risk and Reward

Of course, leave it to the MBA to relate a business concept to life. But, for better or for worse, it makes sense. In the financial world, there is a relationship between risk and reward. That is, those investments that earn greater returns (rewards) are those that involve greater risks. So, the investments that are considered risk-free or low-risk have lower expected returns.

That same concept applies to life. We can go through life always being careful and not taking risks. But, everything in life involves risk. Just like in the financial world, we need to be willing to take risks in order to really live.

Those people who are successful seem to be those who aren't afraid of taking risks and aren't afraid of failure. Take a look at the following quote to illustrate this point:

At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home,
and the boy was forced to go to work. When the boy was nine, his mother
passed
away. He had a job as a store clerk, but lost it when he was twenty.
The young
man wanted to go to law school, but had no education. He went
into debt
when he was twenty-three, to become a partner in a small store. It
was only
three years later that his business partner died, and left him with
a debt that
took years for him to repay.
He dated a girl for four
years and, at the
age of twenty-eight, decided to ask her to marry him. She
turned him down.
Thirty-seven years into his life, he was elected to
Congress... on his THIRD
try. He then failed to be re-elected. This
man's son died when he was only
four years old. At age forty-five, he ran
for the Senate...and failed to be
elected. He persisted at politics and ran
for the vice-presidency at age
forty-seven, and again lost. Finally, at the
age of fifty-one, this man was
elected President of the United States. His
name was Abraham Lincoln.

This makes me think- fear has stopped me in many cases and I have been reluctant to do certain things out of fear of failure or rejection. If Lincoln can take one rejection after another on the road to success, maybe I should be more willing to also.

God brings us more than just good... we should learn to accept it all as it comes and realize it is His plan.

That's it for tonight... more later.