I’ve been described as a risk-taker many times in my career but that is only half true. I just do two things which have paved the way for strategic, calculated risks on the regular. I ‘suss the sitch’ and crucially, I care very little for what detractors think of my plans.
About fifteen years ago I developed what I call the Lucy Bloom risk management framework and it has served me well. It’s not very complicated. You ask yourself two questions: what is the worst thing that could happen? And will anybody die? I was working on my very first book and was married to a rather risk-averse man (I call him the wasband now). He didn’t want me working on a project that was essentially a big fat risk. An unknown entity. It was a niche title and a world-first: a childbirth book for men.
When I asked myself those two key questions, the worst thing that could happen would be a waste of four months of my time and about $20K to edit, print and promote this trailblazing book nationally. If it failed, I would be met with a wall of unsold books in boring brown cartons stacked against the back wall of my garage everytime the roller door opened. My pride would be the only bruise. Would anybody die? Absolutely not. Onwards I went and the book was a smash hit. It still sells very well, updated every few years, because people keep breeding and men want to be the best childbirth support partners they can be. Ha!
Risk perception isn’t purely logical though, it’s emotional and often biased, an outcome of our past experiences and all the violent true crime docos we have seen. When faced with uncertainty, your brain evaluates potential rewards and threats through a tricky interplay of emotion, memory and prediction. If a failure of the past has hurt deeply, we feel that in future attempts. This is probably why I will never marry again but I have published three more books.
Experience, age, and even gender influence how risk is assessed. Younger brains tend to take more risks, climb out of more windows and ride more skateboards downhill, at night with a red bull in one hand and a banana in the other. Older brains stay home on a Monday night and watch Q and A with the cat.
Men and boys have a higher risk profile in the brain and are socially conditioned to take more risks, while women and girls are expected to be more careful. Stress, booze and sleep deprivation can also influence your judgement, skewing risk evaluation toward either reckless abandon or excessive caution. In a nutshell, young men do their most spectacular stupid sh*t late at night. Just ask the NRL.
But here’s the good news: neuroscience shows that risk tolerance can be trained like a muscle. Woot! Those who are cautious can give it a red hot go and keep experimenting in order to regulate fear responses and make more calculated decisions. In short, risk is not just a matter of logic, it’s a neurochemical dance between fear, reward, and control, and it can be trained over time with small steps in the right direction.
Making a conscious decision to NOT care what others think is also crucial to risk taking. Humans are rotten at disassociating themselves from criticism but according to the research on this, a conscious lack of concern for what other people think is key to being creative, risk averse and a fully fledged individual. Those three combine for killer success.
Some of the most incredible innovators in the world are risk takers who simply did not care what others thought of their mad, world changing plans. Steve Jobs, Pablo Picasso and Thomas Edison come to mind but they are all blokes and were famously horrid to live with. Sarah Blakley of Spanx bankrolled her own billion-dollar success, Lady Gaga turned fame into an artform in itself and Aussie Fiona Wood invented spray-on-skin for burns victims. All ignored the critics.
When the unsolicited opinions of others infiltrate my thinking, I remind myself of a golden tip from Brene Brown: you have only one square inch piece of paper on which to write the names of the people whose opinions matter to you. And I have big handwriting.
So, go forth, dear reader. Ask yourself those two basic questions when you catch yourself leaning too hard on the fear button, ignore the critics and remember, life is far too precious for ‘what ifs’ and boring brown cartons filled with regrets. I believe in you.
*A version of this article was originally published for Citro.
