The Personal Risk I Took That Didn’t Pay Off
The Personal Risk I Took That Didn’t Pay Off
Every personal risk I took taught me something, even the one that didn’t pay off. It’s a lot like why every sales leader needs a genuine point of view — you don’t find your edge without risking something first.
I took a risk and it didn’t pay off:
I borrowed my dad’s car when I was 15, had one drink and reversed it into a pole the night before he was to sell it.
I left a safe government job, familiar surroundings and the comfort of my family home with just $200 and an 18 year old’s dream to begin an adventure in a new country.
I married at 20.
I bought my first home, as a single mum, with next to nothing, in the recession we didn’t have to have and managed to afford it for four years whilst paying 18% interest.
I left my cushy six figure job in corporate sales to go it alone doing what I do today, and lasted two years until limiting beliefs saw me walk away from what I loved.
I bought a rundown retail outlet in country Victoria to learn about small business, staffing, cash flow and stock control and took it to a Telstra and Powercorp Award for ‘Excellence in New Business’, whilst co-hosting a community radio show with my husband, buying out our national wholesale supplier and designing and importing our own products.
I trusted a forklift to be my literal support only for it to be the first of many dominoes leading me to end up bedridden for nearly a year, liquidating, going bankrupt, my husband selling his soul to the devil, and then finding ourselves on Centrelink for five glorious months.
I took the little money we had and spent it on my development and kept investing over and over again intent on living my purpose and continuing to make the difference in the world I am now proud to be making.
It may fall on deaf ears. And that doesn’t matter.
Without taking risks we stand still. At any moment of this timeline I could have played it safe, stayed in a space of certainty and my life would not be where it is today. You and I would definitely not be crossing paths so far into this post.
That’s the thing about risk: the personal risk I took looked like a failure on paper, and still turned into the thing I’d repeat.
I could have grown up in the same place I lived my whole life, I could have stayed in a relationship that wasn’t fulfilling, I could have stayed in my safe job and become a dinosaur, I could have stayed on the hand-out government treadmill that sucks the life out of good people afraid to take risks. But my husband and I cared enough to ask ourselves some really tough questions and answered them even more honestly. We risked failing big.
Paradoxically, the reason I am so happy is because of the risks I took that didn’t pay off.
How about you? How successful and riskful is your failure rate?Looking back, the personal risk I took that didn’t pay off financially still paid off in exactly the way that mattered.
I’m Bernadette – founder of the Decision-Led Revenue™ Operating System and The Revenue Leader of Influence™, where I work with CEOs and sales leaders to build a sales team they can rely on to think, make the call, tell the truth about pipeline and own the result.
If any of this resonated – or if you’re staring at a revenue problem that feels like it should have been solved by now – I’d love a conversation.
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