Episode #7: "Embrace Risk"

Transcript

On this episode of the Simply Brilliant Show, I want to talk to you about entrepreneurship and some of the challenges are opportunities, and the ability and the need to take and embrace risk, as well as the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective.

Let's start with entrepreneurship. I started this company about six years ago, as many of you know. I'm self-funded, I've turned down any and all raises. That's not to say that we'll continue to do so, but as of right now, we'll completely self-funded. So, the point of all this is, as an entrepreneur, we try and find the best risk-adjusted opportunity set to invest as little capital with as much certainty as possible.

It's not for the faint of heart and it requires somebody who actually enjoys taking risks and seeing opportunities where others don't. The average person probably should not try this at home, and may not sleep at night and so on and so forth. But the people that really enjoy entrepreneurship, enjoy the challenges and are completely self-reliant and confident, and also, like and get energized by looking for innovation and opportunities, and the minor setbacks, are really just that.

They don't deter. They don't detract. They don't give you reason to quit. You really need to be the kind of person who's persistent, has grit, and is going to continue to pursue the opportunities that you see without failure getting in the way. In fact, we at Brilliant, we look at failure as a learning lesson. We don't repeat the same mistakes twice. But if we're not making mistakes, we're not learning, we're not seeing forward.

So one of the things that I wanted talk to you about is we recently discovered a huge opportunity. And we've started to change some of our company and personnel and we're pivoting a little bit, if you will. And it's not without risk. And that risk is largely that there's a lag between the opportunity and discovery whether or not you're right or wrong.

And as I said earlier, being an entrepreneur that's self-funded, that really means that you have to be able to, and willing to put your money where your mouth is. And so what we're going through right now is a uncomfortable period where we're determining, we're testing the waters, we're trying to see whether we're right or we're wrong. The opportunities that we see, does the market agree, does the market bear the opportunity and the innovation that we see. And we're prepared, and willing, and able. And doing so daily, to live on the downside risk on a revenue basis to see whether or not what we're talking about is real.

It's interesting because there's a lot of discussion now about minimal, viable products and launching that on a lean platform and so on and so forth. Which is awesome, and it's terrific way to go. However, I think it's a little bit misleading because oftentimes, a true innovation and a true opportunity requires patience. You can't just expect overnight success. That's not real. And so I wanted to share with the viewers of the Simply Brilliant Show, that as an entrepreneur, you have to be prepared and really willing to embrace risk. You need to live with the consequences. You need to have a deep enough tolerance that you're not going to get out of your position at the first sight of trouble. And you're going to let your winners ride and you're going to go through the journey.

And so, that takes a certain type of people and a mindset really to embrace that. And so, we here at Brilliant, as a team, we're talking about these challenges and we're saying, "Well, as we pivot and as we've changed the messaging and so on. We would expect Google to recognize that and show us less frequently for some certain key words. And over time, show us more frequently for other key words. And is the world really searching on those key words." And so as a result of that, we're seeing fewer visits. And perhaps less phone calls and that translates into less revenue. And it's really easy to have a kneejerk reaction and say "I'm pulling the plug. I'm out." or "This didn't work. Let's go back to the reverse." But if you're really going to innovate and you're really going to create new opportunities, and new paths, and so on. You need to embrace that risk. You need to be comfortable with it. You need to look deep and say, "Is entrepreneurship for me?"

So, I just wanted to share that with you because oftentimes, entrepreneurs are glorified and talked about how awesome it is. And it is incredibly awesome but I don't think it's for everybody. And so, this is something that we're going through right now. We wanted to share it with you.

The other thing that I wanted to talk to a little bit about is finding opportunities where others don't or seizing the kind of negative space, if you will. So, for some of you, you may know this about me. I love to spin. I go to spin class four to five days a week. Forty five minutes of intense cardio and you really do it for yourself, right? The instructors and the coaches, they don't know how much energy you're pushing forward. Just you and your monitor, my heart rate and so on. So I do it for myself.

Today was an interval day where we did 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off. And the average person in that room really focuses on charging as hard as they possibly can for the 30 seconds on, and that's great. Today I focused on inverse, which was the recovery. I worked really, really hard to make sure that as soon as the 30 seconds on was finished, I started to breathe intelligently and try and recover. They theory being that if you can maximize your recovery and your response to that stress, you're in a better position for the next interval.

So, things like that where you just start to think about things a little bit differently, and you focus on the world slightly differently, and you take challenges. And this isn't unique, a lot of athletes do this. But my point is, a lot of people watching the show aren't thinking like that, or maybe aren't athletic and doing the spin class, or whatever. But in whatever it is that you do do, think about how can I maximize this, how can I get better, how can I get stronger. And it's not necessarily the straightforward approach, which is go super hard during the interval training. It can also be recover really intelligently, really efficiently, be really effective in your recovery. So that after 30 seconds of recovery, you can charge really, really hard during the next interval.

So, I hope you've enjoyed this Simply Brilliant episode. Please stay tuned. Go ahead and subscribe. And we look forward to speaking with you later. We'll probably have one more show before the holiday season. But if we don't, we wish you all a happy, healthy holiday and a prosperous 2016. Thank you so very much. Have a great day.

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