If talent, hard work, education, and drive were the only traits you needed to achieve prosperity, wouldn’t you be wealthy already?

Wouldn’t more people enjoy lives of happiness and luxury?

Clearly, there is something else that leads to prosperity, and this thing is a willingness to take risks that are based on a firm belief in one’s talents and ideas.

Your Willingness to Take a Risk Indicates Your Level of Confidence

Great entrepreneurs have quit jobs invested savings and relocated across the globe because they believed in their ideas. In fact, if you read just about any biography of a self-made entrepreneur, you will find that they had at least one watershed moment where they put what they had at risk for obtaining what they wanted.

Not only is this a necessary step towards prosperity for the entrepreneur, it is what inspires confidence in others. If you have ever watched the show ‘Shark Tank’ this is often put to the test.

Contestants looking for investors are frequently asked what they have done to help themselves and their companies. The entrepreneurs who can say they have taken big chances to launch their startups often get investments.

Those who cannot say so, are frequently told they have a hobby, not a business.

Risk Taking Often Leads to Initial Failure: This is a Good Thing

When risk-taking leads to failure, successful people may change strategy, but they do not quit working towards their goals.

Are you willing to do the same thing? If you have an idea that you believe will lead you to prosperity, would you be willing to continue to pursue that if you failed? Even if the failure is painful? Would you be willing to regroup, create a strategy, and try again? What if that led to another failure?

Here is the truth. The path to prosperity isn’t risk, sacrifice, failure, risk success. In many cases, it is, risk, failure, suffering, risk, more failure, more suffering, more risk, etc., through several iterations before true progress is made.

Fortunately, for those who stick through it, the risks and consequences eventually turn into rewards and lessons learned.

Risk Taking Brings Out Naysayers: This Can be Used to Test Your Resolve

When you take risks you are upsetting the status quo, and that scares people. Some of this fear may come from genuine concern. After all, if you are living a relatively comfortable life, and decide to take a left turn, people may wonder if you have thought things through.

They may worry that you will suffer irreparably in the wrong run. “You might lose your house!” they will tell you. “How will you support your family?” they will ask. “How will you manage your time, trying to do this and keeping food on the table?” your friends and family will ask.



When faced with this questioning, doubt, and concern, most people will give up. They don’t want to upset their loved ones. Sometimes, the questions and statements of concern, also sow seeds of doubt which result in giving up.

This is why there aren’t many prosperous people. Prosperous people do not allow the doubt of others stop them in their relentless pursuit of what they are trying to achieve.

At the end of the day, your willingness to take risks to pursue prosperity highlights many things. The first is the strength of your belief in your idea. You need this confidence to succeed and to get others to buy into your dream as well.

Next, it shows your willingness to persevere through a cycle of risks, failures, and consequences while learning and adjusting your plans.

Finally, it demonstrates that you are willing to pursue your goal, even if it is unpopular among those closest to you.

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