Risk, Freedom and Success

RISK AND FREEDOM

As a free individual, when you take your own initiative, you inevitably risk failure. Just as there is the possibility for success in life, there is a great deal of room for failure. Individual liberty is a marvelous idea, and a good idea is a worthy place to begin. But being a possibility,identifying yourself as a possibility, living as a possibilitythis is the direct result of the risks you take in life. Built into the very possibility of freedom is risk-the possibility of loss or injury.

There are positive and negative kinds of risks. How do you distinguish the sort of risk that opens up possibilities from a mere gamble? We aren't interested in risk for risk's sake. The risk that will serve you is the risk that enables you to further what you are really up to in your life-the risk that forces you to recognize the disparity between your deepest concerns and what your actions are producing, and to close that gap. The only potential for breakthrough -the only thing that will always catapult you from your present situation, from your blindness, from your transparency-is your own experience of seeing what you are really about, the risk of telling yourself the truth.

Consider the following questions. Write your responses in your journal.

• What is your interpretation of individual liberty?
• What is your interpretation of freedom?
• What are the prices and rewards of freedom?
• What is your interpretation of risk?
• What are the prices and rewards of risking?
• Where do you see that your freedom is limited in a way that is out of your control? Could that be merely a matter of interpretation?
• What risks do you find easy to take? Which ones do you avoid at all costs?
• What risks have you been unwilling to take to accomplish what is important to you?
• What are your concerns about risking? What is the down side of risk?
• When have you risked and 'succeeded'? Be specific about your relationships, business, and so on.
• When have you risked and 'failed'? Again, be specific.
• At what general degree of being 'at risk' do you operate every day?

SUCCESS

Because of the competitive nature of our society, Americans often confuse having the objective symbols of success with living a committed,satisfying life. Another point of view on success and failure is that once you get clear about your fundamental concerns, and once you fully commit yourself to those concerns in your actions, then you realize what really counts. What is most effective and harmonious is living out of that commitment. If you are successful in doing this, then you will likely be as successful as possible in the objective sense. If you know who you are and what you're up to in your life, you can play the material game, but your source of fulfillment and empowerment isn't a material scorecard.

The trouble with talking about success is that success is a judgment,an evaluation about what has already happened,a comparison of yourself and others based primarily on material standards. Unfortunately,merely accumulating the symbols of success doesn't guarantee you an experience of personal success.

Thinking of success in terms of your performance provides constant motivation. Thinking of success in terms of the accumulation of wealth and power is an endless,futile grind. Operating on the leading edge, participating in your projects passionately and effectively,and living life out of the stand you have taken about what is possible for humankind-that is inspiring. A winning score on the scoreboard after the final gun doesn't necessarily constitute an experience of success,and can be a hollow,short-lived victory. As Gerry Beemiller,a Lifespring graduate who is a self-made millionaire, explains, he made a major career move years ago when he noticed a competitor driving in a Mercedes while he was in a Ford LTD. Now he has his Mercedes. “It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t really care. It’s a nice car to have because I spend so much time behind the wheel, but it isn't the fact that it's a Mercedes that turns me on anymore. Once you've got it, it isn't as important."

There is something missing in the conversation our culture has about success. That conversation, which urges us to develop an image of success through its symbols (“He who dies with the most toys wins”) does not address our fundamental cares and concerns as human beings. Does that mean that material success and achieving results are illegitimate or trivial goals? Not at all. Rather, looking to those symbols to give your life meaning doesn't work. Homes, cars, stock portfolios, resumés,being invited to the right parties,and so on,are gratifying in one domain of satisfaction. On a more meaningful level, however, the path toward achieving those symbols more powerfully affects the quality of your life than the symbols themselves. An “ends justify the means" approach to success, even when legal and moral, neglects the significance of the journey which is the actual process of living.

There is an opening in a conversation about peak performance, a conversation that encourages you to operate as if 100 percent is possible 100 percent of the time. Being committed to maximum participation rather than to a bank balance or a winning record is empowering and vital. And don't you notice that often those people who strive for peak peformance are also the people attaining the material trappings of success? It's not a lucky coincidence. While the proverbial rat race is a grind and no accomplishment is ever enough, living every moment as though your life depended on it is invigorating and rewarding.

When your ambition is motivated by commitment to your ideals you are operating from a stronger, more powerful place than if you're motivated by the desire to acquire the symbols of success. There are countless testimonials in recent bestsellers focusing on business and management success to substantiate this. Those men and women who make it to the top most often get there as a by-product of a dedication to something bigger than their acquisitive nature, like achieving personal excellence or contributing to mankind. By reframing your concept of success and failure, you will be as effective as possible by acting out of lucid and total commitment to your expressed ideals.

Fulfillment has everything to do with your interaction with others. I don't experience myself as successful when I have negotiated a great contract, or bought a new home, or won a tennis match.I experience success when I know I have participated in something with all of my passion, vulnerability, and commitment. Gandhi said:“Full effort is full victory." My accomplishments always, without exception, involve other people. Every accomplishment I have ever achieved,in or out of the work environment, somehow has included other people. Success hinges around how you are with people. Success always includes opening doors for others, standing not only for achieving an intended result, but also for contributing to someone else's experience of personal success.

When you as an individual take a stand about success that integrates the principles of freedom, risking, and acting on your highest ideals, you serve society as a whole. In justifying a society that protects individual liberty, philosophers claim that, insofar as you maxamize liberty, you maximize the possibility for creativity,innovation,personal enterprise, and so on.In the end, the whole society benefits. But a libertarian society will only flourish to the extent that its members are willing to take the risks required for a fruitful exercise of their freedoms. For instance, those individuals who struggled for civil rights throughout American history-before, during, and after the 1960srisked the possibility of loss and injury for the sake of greater personal and social gains. Their success (although far from complete even now) opened new possibilities for freedom in being human.

Look at success for yourself by answering the questions below in your journal.

• What does success mean to you?
• When you are ninety years old, looking back on your life, what do you think will be more important to you, the symbols you acquired and the image you maintained, or the experience of having given life everything you had?
• How do other people fit into your picture of success? Do you tend to see people as means to an end, or appreciate them regardless of their utility to you?

VULNERABILITY

A key to allowing individual liberty and initiative to flourish is a tolerance,acceptance,and concern for others that is often missing in a competitive culture. Such a climate allows people to take the risk of being vulnerable and open, to share with each other both their faults and highest ideals. One of the most difficult risks that we have to confront is being vulnerable with one another. We find it difficult to take a stand for what we are really concerned with, or to be true to our personal ideals, because we are aware of what others will think.

Taking the risk of being vulnerable creates or deepens a connection between people. Relationships develop a private dimension when people are vulnerable with each other. Through risking being vulnerable, you reconstitute your relationships with people, and thereby your social reality. Take the example of romance. When two people are dating, something almost palpable happens to the relationship when they first kiss. A new sphere of relatedness is born in the public space between them,a “for us" or “between us" that doesn't exist one moment, but does exist in the next moment. When you are vulnerable, you extend a hand of trust, creating a private “for us” that isn't characteristic of most interactions.

Of course, risking and vulnerability don't only bear on love relationships. Suppose you and I are in a meeting together.I am a spy. You know I'm a spy and I know that you know it. And you know that I know that you know I'm a spy. When we meet there is never any mention of my being a spy even though it is common knowledge. At the end of this particular meeting, however, when I stand up to leave, my shirt gets caught on the edge of the table, ripping it so that the wiring hidden inside is exposed. In that instant, our whole relationship is transformed from “I know you know” to“We know.”

The Lifespring trainings provide a context in which people can count on the attention, support, and sincere concern of others leaving you fortified to go out in the world, where that attention and concern isn't always present. Being vulnerable is being open to attack or damage. The training provides a solid and unshakable experience of affirmation that you can take with you wherever you go. You experience the possibilities that open up when you risk being authentic in the face of your fear. Your challenge is to create this context in your own interaction with people, both by risking vulnerability yourself and by truly allowing others the freedom to be vulnerable with you.

Reflect on the following questions and record your thoughts in your journal.

• What does vulnerability mean to you?
• What is at stake when you are vulnerable with someone?
• Are the potential rewards of risk and vulnerability worth the potential prices?
• In what area of your life is your unwillingness to be vulnerable holding you back.What actions will you take to break through that barrier?

RISKING IN YOUR OWN LIFE

The United States' Declaration of Independence states that you have a natural and inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. I believe that you also have a natural and inalienable right to the pursuit of possibilities. Recognizing and acting on your possibilities requires a courageous commitment to your principles, a willingness to risk total failure,acceptance of every other individual's equal right to freedom, and a degree of vulnerability that could end up making you look like a complete fool.

The following are requests about risking in your life. If you accept the requests, consider two suggestions: (1) Use the opportunity to have breakthroughs in your life. One way to know whether you have chosen significant risks is by how reluctant you are to carry them out. Obviously, don't choose risks that are life threatening, but don't let yourself off without pushing your personal limits either. (2) Pick someone to support you in carrying them out. Tell that person what you are promising to do, and ask him or her to follow up with youto call you every day and ask if you have completed your promises. If, for example, your risk involves meeting new people, promise your supporter that every day you will have conversations with at least two new people whom you find attractive, and that part of those conversations will include an invitation to do something with you.Then, set up a time every day when you will check in with your supporter. Don't make him or her pay for their commitment to you-if you break your word, don't penalize them for it by resisting their support.

The following requests are to promote risks that make a positive difference in your life. Record your promises in your journal.

• Take a risk in your primary relationship.Do you accept or decline? If you accept, what is the risk and when will you have taken it?
• Take a risk at work. Accept or decline? If you accept, what is the risk and when will you have taken it?
• Take a risk with at least one member of your family (the family you grew up with).Accept or decline? If you accept, what is the risk and when will you have taken it?
• Take a risk with at least one friend. Accept or decline? If you accept, what is the risk and when will you have taken it?

This will be a huge challenge for most people because it requires you to do things publicly that are atypical of your usual behavior patterns,and are, therefore,likely to be uncomfortable.I encourage you to jump into the challenge. What you do won't feel natural, and while you are in the process, you may find yourself in self-judgment. One opportunity for breakthrough is when you are on the edge between going back to your same, old way of being and a new possibility. You will be awkward and self-conscious, but choose the path of the new possibility.