Behind Every Successful Man Is Acceptable Risk

On Our Collective Misunderstanding of Our Own Selves

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power —

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

All growth comes at a price. A price, all of us know by the word “risk”. However, over the generations, one of the least developed parts of our intelligence is “risk intelligence”. Risk intelligence directly stems from our own lack of understanding of our own capabilities. A bias we call over or under estimating our true strengths and more importantly, our weaknesses. This might sound counter intuitive considering the fact that one would think risk stems from our lesser understanding of external forces. However, the ability of humans to reason is the sole reason we behave as unreasonable parasites on a planet we call home.

The way to think about our situation is: how many external forces can we actually control even though we think we have general control over most things? I am not saying that all control is an illusion. I am saying that focusing on knowing our inner selves and on understanding risk intimately, we can grow…