You’ll Never Grow Until You TAKE RISKS | Unlock Your Fearless Side

One of the real reasons we don't do the things that frighten us is because we are afraid of being judged. We are afraid of failure.

People might view me as a risk-taker. I don't view myself that way at all.

We get lost in our current environment, in our current world, and that prevents us from making smart decisions. What's up, Believe Nation?

It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode. Float out onto the world. Now I started the Believe Life Series to once a week tackle a different problem, a different topic in personal development to have this constant source of fuel for you to continue to learn, grow, and get better. So let's live our best Believe Life and today learn how to be a risk taker. Enjoy! First up, let's talk about why it's important to be a risk taker with Mark Zuckerberg.

In a world that's changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk. And I really think that that's true. Right, I mean, a lot of people I think think that, you know, whenever it comes to, whenever you get yourself into a position where you have to make some big shift in direction or do something, you know, there are always, people are going to point to the downside risks of that decision. And locally, they may be right, right? I mean, for any given decision that you're going to make, there's upside and downside. But in aggregate, if you, are stagnant and you don't make those changes, then I think you're guaranteed to fail, right, and not catch up. So to some degree, I think it's really right that over time the biggest risk that you can take is to not take any risks.

Now let's get to the how. Tip number 1 is release your attachment to the outcome with Robin Sharma.

Release your attachment to outcomes. Now you say, "Robin, what are you talking about?" One of the real reasons we don't do the things that frighten us is because we are afraid of being judged. We are afraid of failure. We are afraid of success. We are afraid of stumbling. What I'm suggesting to you is one of the reasons we don't really step into our heroic nature as human beings is because we're attached to the outcome. And so just developing the philosophy where You live in the moment, you do the things that frighten you, and you don't really worry about what happens. That will develop a sense of fearlessness and a sense of bravery.

Tip number 2, define risk clearly with Tim Ferriss.

How do you define risk?

You know, this is an important question because I realized that a lot of the knots we tie ourselves into and a lot of the anxiety that we feel is actually due to using words that are not defined very well, like success. I just want to be successful. Well, you better have a very clear definition of what that is if it's going to be one of your main obsessions.

Young lady or young man.

Yeah. Happiness.

Yup.

Ooh, that's a slippery one too. And risk is another one. Risk to me is the Likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome.

Yes.

That's it.

That's it. So defined that way, there are actually very few serious risks. And I choose to take very few serious risks. People might view me as a risk taker. I don't view myself that way at all.

Tip number 3 is keep things in perspective with me.

It's so easy to get lost in your current situation. It's so easy to get lost in the present moment and to be stuck and only look at the trees instead of being able to take a step up and see the forest and, and see a much bigger picture. We get lost in our current environment, in our current world, and that prevents us from making smart decisions. That current world will change so many times. You will have many opportunities to reinvent yourself over the course of your life. My own story: when I was in university, I thought I wanted to be a banker. I thought I wanted to get a job. I was working towards getting a job. I want to be a banker. This is what I want to do. Everything was geared towards that. Life change, right? Sudden shift. Meet these entrepreneurs, join this company, and now it's all about the software company and building it up, and biotech, and I know nothing about science, I know nothing about software, and I'm young, and I doubt myself, and I have all these limiting beliefs. That was my world. I sold it, and then what? Now I don't know what I want to do. I end up becoming a venture capitalist, and I'm all in on being a venture capitalist. I'm learning and understanding how to raise capital. I'm not super interested in it once I've learned enough. So I want to help entrepreneurs. How am I going to do that? I don't know. I start by speaking, I go to the website, now I'm all in on YouTube. YouTube won't be here forever, right? Like, YouTube might last 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and then something else comes along, and that'll be the next shift. And so I think it's easy to get lost in the moment of what our current short-term view of the world is and our life is. But when you have the extra perspective to think of, you know what, like, I'm going to have multiple careers over my life. Like, what happens right now is not as important as you think it is, right? It's not like you make one decision here today and that's your life for the rest of your life. Make the decision. If it doesn't work out, it's okay. You will adjust. You will change. Once YouTube dies down— like, this is my moment right now, I have to go all in on that before that window closes— but once YouTube shifts, it's okay. I will shift. I will find the next thing. I will adjust, right? How the moment of uncertainty, and then I'll find my next thing and go hard on that. And so the lesson from this for me is when you find that thing, you got to do it. Because if your goal is to be a YouTuber, as an example, if YouTube's not as big in 5 years or 10 years and something else is all the rage, like, you missed your chance. You won't be a YouTuber forever. Things will change. So when you have that idea, when you have that spark, when you want to try to do something, instead of sitting on the sidelines and watching somebody else get rich off your idea and kicking yourself and saying, "I should have done that. Like, I had it all lined up, right? I had the idea, I had the talent, I had the ability. I just didn't believe in myself. I didn't take enough action." Instead of just sitting on the sidelines and being that person, do something. And if it doesn't work out, it's okay, because you'll have multiple opportunities in the future to continue to reinvent yourself. This one idea is not your forever idea. So just give it a shot and see if it works out instead of living the rest of your life wondering what if.

Tip number 4 is be more personal with Brendon Burchard.

Part of taking a risk is being more personal, teaching yourself to share more, to be more vulnerable. It's hard, I get it. You know, I'm in front of a camera, in front of stage all of my life. Uh, I shouldn't say my adult life. I mean, over the last 10 years of my life, it's been a very public journey for me. You see, if you're on with us on Facebook, you know, this is— we have 5 million fans on this Facebook page alone. Doesn't count our other Facebook pages. You know, we've just started and we're growing our Instagram channel. Hey guys on Instagram. I mean, this has been a journey for me of being in front of the public eye. But even me, for my next level, I'm gonna have to share more about my personal life, be more thoughtful about that. And that takes a lot of vulnerability. It doesn't scare me, I just know I need to do it. And I'll give you an example. You know, when I first started my career in personal and professional development, you know, because if you ask me, Brendon, what do you do? I will say, well, I'm a writer first and I'm a trainer second. I've been blessed to train more people on the topic motivation to high performance than anybody else in the world now. Our videos have been viewed over 100 million times, over 10 million fans across our Facebook pages. I've been blessed to reach a lot of people. But I can share with you, when I began my career, I thought I had to be Mr. Buttoned Up, you know, so proper. And because I came from the consulting world, you know, if you ever had a real job in organizational America and then you start doing this, it's hard not to be stiff, you know, and not share as much. But I remember the first time I ever shared with my audience back then, I shared with them about how when I started my career, I went broke and I mean bankrupt. I was in bankruptcy and I was struggling to start my career, do my own seminars. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, people were making fun of me. I'm sure people are making fun of me right now on this livecast. You get used to that part. But, you know, it was new and it was scary. And I'll never forget though that after I shared that, so many people would come up to me and like, "I've struggled with that too. I've been bankrupt," or, "I came from poverty and I worked hard and I made it too." And people would share their stories with me, and it was really inspiring and taught me that, you know, people won't believe your successes if they don't believe the struggle. You got to share where you've struggled more in life, and that feels like a risk. But, you know, you got to be honest. Does your family and your friends and the people you serve, do they know what you really think, what you really feel, what you really desire in life? What you're really going after, what you need? Because if they don't know that about you, that's not taking risks. Look, being quiet and avoiding difficult conversation is not taking risks, and it's not the path to growth. The path to growth for so many of us is another level of personal authenticity, another level of personal sharing. And if you don't do that, then you're not risking, you're just going through the motions.

And tip number 5, the last one before the bonus clips, is assess risk properly. With Tony Robbins.

I interviewed these 50 unbelievable investors, had in common, they're all different. You know, I interviewed people that are macro traders. I interviewed people like Warren Buffett, right? Value people. I interviewed people that it's blood in the streets type of people. You buy when the world is going to hell. And they're all different, but they had 4 things in common real fast. Number 1, every single one of them was obsessed with not losing money. Guys like you and I tend to say, how do we make money for our companies, for ourselves? As an investor. Their entire focus is not losing money because they know if you lose 50%, it takes 100% to get even.

Well, it's about becoming comfortable with risk.

Well, it's more than that. These guys are obsessed with not being comfortable with risk. They don't want to take risk. The second key that they do is they all are focused on asymmetrical risk-reward. Most people think the most successful investors take huge risks to get huge rewards. And in reality, they take the least risk human possible to get the largest upside. So their whole focus is, how do I get a 3-to-1 or a 5-to-1? If I risk a dollar, try to make 5, and I'm wrong, I can risk— I can be wrong 4 times and break even. So they have a completely different approach. They're all very focused, thirdly, on tax efficiency, because you only have the money you get to keep. And fourthly, it's all diversification. And those 4 things fundamentally are the frame from which you start to design a portfolio.

Now I've got some special bonus clips for you, but before I get into that, my question of the day today is: What is the biggest risk right now that you are afraid to make in your business or your life? What is that big risk you're afraid to do? Leave it in the comments below. I want to hear from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon, and enjoy the bonus Hang with the heroes.

Well, if you followed me before in other Mastery Sessions, or maybe it's Facebook or Instagram, or you've read my books, you know that I believe you become your conversations. Because listening to an audiobook or reading a book is nothing more than having a conversation with the author. And you do become the people you surround yourself with. And so what I'm encouraging you to become fearless is to read the books of people who have transcended adversity. I mean, it might be a Nelson Mandela, it might be an Elon Musk, it might be a Martin Luther King Jr., it might be someone in your neighborhood who overcame adversity and you decide to have a conversation over coffee with them. I mean, a lot of times the media will ask me, well, Robin, your books work for people who had great backgrounds, people who have a lot of money, people who had the lucky breaks. That's just not true. If you look at the people who become iconic in business and in, in whatever the field might be, most of the time those are people who actually came from nothing or they had a lot of adversity, but the adversity allowed them to get to know their talents, the adversity developed their strength, the adversity allowed them to become better thinkers, and they actually used failure to develop greater levels of freedom. And one of the best ways to do that is to read the books or listen to the audiobooks or to spend time with people who've overcome adversity, who have been frightened, and they've transcended it to higher levels of confidence and bravery.

You engage in an unnecessary risk when you act precipitously without sufficient information or without taking time to think think it through carefully in advance. Many of the mistakes that you have made, and, and me for that matter, have occurred because you acted without thinking. That is, you acted without taking the time to minimize the risks involved. It's been said that you should invest as much time examining or exploring an investment as you spent earning the money to make the investment. You should do your due diligence. You should talk to experts in the field. You should get as much information as possible before you make an irrevocable decision.

Are you a risk taker? Successful people are, but not just random, haphazard, like I'm driving drunk without my seatbelt type of risk. I'm talking about calculated risks. You weigh the options, you weigh the potential outcome, both good and bad, and you make the best decision possible. But guys, I'm here to tell you that you are never ultimately going to be successful unless you're willing to put yourself out there. Having the ability or the willingness to potentially fail is an absolute benefit. And sometimes these calculated risks, even though you thought about them, sometimes they just don't work out. And you know what successful people do? It's all right, I learned something, I know what not to do next time, and you make another calculated risk. Guys, nothing great was ever achieved because it was easy.

So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy.

The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, Will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.