Is it scary, or is it dangerous?
Recently, I’ve been binge-listening to the back catalogue of How I Built This with Guy Raz.
And something I heard in the episode with Jim Koch, founder of the Sam Adams beer, stopped me in my tracks.
Jim has a BA, JD, and MBA from Harvard University.
In 1984, he had been working at the prestigious management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group for six years.
And then one day, he decided to quit and found a brewing company.
Guy Raz asked him how he could leave such a cushy, prestigious job to chase this crazy idea.
And Jim replied—
I left it because staying there was very risky.
Leaving it was not risky.
It’s the difference in life between things that are scary and things that are dangerous.
There are plenty of things that are scary but not dangerous.
And there are things that are dangerous but not scary. And those are the things that get you.
I can give you a climbing analogy from Outward Bound.
One of the things we taught people to do was rappel off a cliff. It’s a very scary thing to do. But you’re also held by a belay rope, and that rope will hold a car.
So walking off the cliff backwards is scary but not dangerous.
Walking across a 35 degree angle snowfield on a beautiful, late May afternoon with a bright blue sky — it’s not scary at all.
But it’s very dangerous because snow is melting, eventually it’s going to find a layer of ice, water will lubricate that, and you have an avalanche.
That is dangerous but not scary.
And in my situation, staying at BCG was dangerous but not scary.
The danger there, the risk of it, was continuing to do something that didn’t make me happy and getting to 65…
And looking back and going, “Oh my god, I wasted my life.”
That is risk. That is danger.
So as life pummels you with little stressors today…
I want you to ask yourself:
Is this scary, or is this dangerous?
I’ll bet you anything that 99% of what is stressing you out IS scary…
But not dangerous at all.
And then I want you to look around and ask yourself:
Where are the things that are dangerous…but not scary at all?
The things that are slowly but surely taking my life NOT in the direction I want it to go…
…but don’t set off any alarm bells on a day-to-day basis?
Doing what you’ve always done…
Or doing what all your friends are doing…
Or doing the thing that is easy to explain and “makes sense” to everyone else…
All those things are very, very UN-scary…
…but they can end up being very, very dangerous…
If they lead you to live a life you’ll regret at the end.
So take a moment to check in with yourself.
Is your life heading in the direction you want it to go?
Is 90-year-old you going to be happy with you, or furious at you?
You know, in your bones, the answers to those questions.
And if you don’t like the answers…
Come talk to me.
Book a free coaching consult to talk me about working together one-on-one.
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