In this informal conversation, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D., and Peter discuss the role of risk‑taking in achieving career success. Tom highlights that successful individuals often embrace risk, while acknowledging that not everyone can afford to do so. They explore how preparation—through education, credentials, and professional relationships—enables people to take incremental, manageable risks rather than reckless leaps. Peter shares his own experience moving from a low‑paid mechanic job to starting his own business after marriage, illustrating the practical benefits of calculated risk. Both agree that education provides a broad platform of options for young people, cautioning against pursuing passion without a solid knowledge base. The dialogue concludes with plans to create a collaborative blog series for senior YouTubers, reflecting on format and audience engagement.
Chapters
It's remarkable that, you know, the idea that that was a risky thing to do. It was a risky thing to do for you to change from being a public health inspector, which I'm sure in in England at that time in particular was a very secure position. And so taking the kind of risk that you took to, um, get into the motorcycle repair world, uh, and, and in, in your case, actually leading to less income as a result of doing so— today, risk-taking is one of the most important characteristics of successful people. If we look at the most successful people who exist in, in the world today, successful from a business and financial standpoint, but I think also from a personal passion kind of, uh, uh, pursuit standpoint, that taking a risk is really what defines the successful people, and that the people who are most wary of taking risks are those who are, who are very, very often the least successful people today.
Well, yes, I think that can be true, but of course it can't work for everybody, and people's circumstances vary. And even though they would like to take a risk, they may be locked into a condition where they, they can't do that. But in my own case, I was very happy to be a mechanic, but the time came when I got married and I thought I couldn't possibly buy a house and support a wife on this meager wage, and I was really, I felt unkind to ask my boss for a raise, and so I started up on my own in business, and fortunately it was successful, and I'm quite proud of some of the things that I did in business, and I thereby got the money that I said I didn't want in the first place, so it's a happy ending to the story, I suppose.
You know, I've, one of the things that I've done in my career is to interview literally hundreds of executives. I've done a good deal of selection, pre-selection kind of interviewing for executives and also a lot of executive coaching. And that story that you just told about sequential risk-taking and eventually being able to take the risk to start your own business is characteristic of so many stories of successful people. And I heard your caveat there about, you know, not everybody can take a risk, and that's certainly the case. I think the trick, if there's a trick, is to try to put oneself by virtue of preparation and credentials and so on to put one's— and relationships, relationships are crucial— to put oneself into a position to be able to to take risks that are not risks of enormous magnitude, but maybe incremental kind of risks that look like they make sense.
Yes, Tom, but if I might just interrupt, it's very unlikely that young people will be listening to us, our two old farts. But if there should be, I wouldn't like to put forward the opinion that you should follow your dreams before you have got your education and all the necessary background.
Couldn't agree more.
Things that you need for life, let alone for— I mean, you could go and say, I want to be a skateboard professional and I can do that at 13, I won't bother with school, I won't bother with this. If there are any young people who— well, anyway, they've never got to the end of this, they'd have clicked off before they got this far.
Yeah, probably.
Anyway, you take my point.
I do, and I think, you know, the— and I certainly concur that the idea that, you know, we need to prepare ourselves for a wide range of outcomes, of eventualities. A lot of things can happen, and certainly education is a great platform to prepare yourself for having a lot of options in life.
Essential, I would say.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, you know that I pursued education a great deal. I think that it's very interesting today to see the kinds of paths that are available to young people and to, as you put it, to empathize with the difficulty in trying to figure out what's really the best path. Because in the past, people could say with great confidence, if you do these things, this will happen. Today it's not so simple.
No, I think that sums it up very well, Tom, and I can't think of anything else to say, so the easiest thing to say in those circumstances is goodbye.
I think that's right, Peter. Goodbye from both of us. We'll probably not make this a one, uh, um, all-in-one cut video. Well, maybe we'll Cut it up into a couple of shorter ones and, uh—
I think that's always better, Tom. Then we might catch some people who might even reach the end of it.
I think that might be terrific.
Seeing what comments we get and I hope that we'll do another one of these. What are we calling this series? A collaborative blog or something?
I like that. A collaborative blog by a couple of senior YouTubers.
I think that, uh, that sounds good to me.
Gives us some distinction instead of old farts, which I thought was, you know, a little gratuitous. It was a little gratuitous, the old farts routine. I have to—
