Manager of Risk or Manager of Opportunity

Which statement seems truer for you:

“When you know what you can’t do, then you know what you can do.

“When you believe in what is possible, then you know what you can do.”

If certainty is heard in “when you know,” then what’s being said in the idea of doing the possible? Rather than a simple play on words, these two thoughts can underscore a way-of-being that becomes visible when we’re presented with opportunity. It’s about which is larger in our mind: the risks or the benefits?” In the first example, risk is the prime consideration whereas opportunity is larger in the second.

Of course, no one ignores risk-that isn’t in view-what can be is our tendency to manage risk instead of managing opportunity. There are multiple reasons why we choose one over the other as well as degrees with which we engage them. These can be reasons that are well preserved in our psyche and not easily dislodged. But that’s okay.

We don’t need to abandon our way-of-being, but we could benefit by admitting another perspective. It means that we can still do good work regardless our approach so long as we’re open to growing, to allowing the thing we fear to be present with us. It isn’t about abandoning one for the other but allowing ourselves to appreciate that both risk and opportunity are present in every endeavor with the variable being us.