The risk muscle

Humor my ego for a moment as I assert that my risk-taking muscle has lately become pretty buff. Now, I haven't exactly scaled El Capitan, but in the past few months I have made steady strides against my personal benchmark: I went skydiving and did the highest bungee jump in the world, and I quit my cushy consulting job and moved to India to work for a start-up non-profit. (I'll leave the rest out, since my mom reads this page.)

Mind you, the risk-taking muscle is not all brawn – it's brains too. In its most evolved form, it becomes completely effective at an ostensibly simple task: accurately assessing risk, and making decisions accordingly.

Yet this is not so simple in practice.

What happens in the moments before you address an audience of 100 people? When you spot a pretty girl or handsome fellow at a cocktail party whom you'd really like to get to know better? When you go to speak a foreign language, in which you're shaky, to a native?

We're all human, and in these situations, our heart rate goes up; "what if" and FAILURE scenarios start flashing like breaking news on our TV sets. What these scenarios have in common is that they are all extremely low risk yet they arouse irrational fear in pretty much everyone.

My assertion here is that we all stand to learn to assess risk more accurately and less emotionally. Moreover, I would argue that the best way to do this is not by taking big risks, but by taking tiny ones, constantly. There is one simple reason for this: learning to assess and take measured risks is all about practice.

For most of us, the opportunity to even confront a big risk is pretty rare. How often does one consider a career change? Maybe once a year, in extreme cases? How often do you get the opportunity to invest half your life savings in a start-up? How often do you get stranded on an island and make the call, "make a raft, or wait it out?" The point is, if you want to practice by taking easily identifiable risks, you might not get too much practice. Not to mention, the stakes are, by definition, really high.

By contrast, small risks abound. The problem is, they usually involve such immaterial outcomes that we ignore them, or don't notice them in the first place. Say, the risk of starting a conversation with that stranger in the elevator. Or the risk of actually responding to your CEO's email asking for feedback on company culture. Or the risk of wearing that funky outfit to Friday's dinner party?

These are, like, epically small risks, and they happen to all of us, all the time. Pay attention. And take them.