Many people think that entrepreneurs love risk. Some would say that this love of risk is one of the primary reasons that entrepreneurs do entrepreneurial things. After all, research suggests only 30 percent of new small businesses continue to operate after five years. Add to that the fact that many entrepreneurs launch their business ventures by pledging much — if not all — of their personal wealth, and the assumption seems well-founded.

But I believe that the perennially successful entrepreneur is actually quite risk-averse.

The old adage that if you play with a snake you'll eventually get bit is relevant here. If the snake is risk, I would suggest that good entrepreneurs know what the snake looks like and, although the snake is always present in the room, they never take their eyes off of it. They can tolerate its presence, but they never want it to get too close to them.

Of course, entrepreneurs aren't the only people who face professional risk. In some ways, traditional careers are even more risky because they rely on the unlikely combination of 40 years of financial stability from our employers and 40 years of unwavering loyalty from a constant parade of changing bosses. Honestly, how often is that going to happen?

And sometimes the biggest risks come in our failure to seize real opportunities and adapt to changing realities.

I have a very sharp friend who is a CPA. For more than 15 years, he has worked for a national company as the controller of a large and highly profitable division. The division manufactures a unique product sold around the world. Thanks in part to the work of my friend, it was the world leader in market share.

Several years ago, the company (as it periodically did) brought in a new division manager. By the third year, company market share had fallen dramatically and, due to some poor management decisions, the division began to lose money. To my great surprise, the division manager convinced his superiors that my friend was the problem, and he was summarily fired. His prior decade-plus of outstanding performance meant little when the chips were down.

An entrepreneur friend of mine said: "I decided that the safest thing I could do with my career was to invest in myself. I know my work ethic. I know my integrity. I know my ability to make good decisions. I feel safer investing my time, energy and talent in my own venture than I ever would working for somebody else."

In other words, he chose to be an entrepreneur in large measure because he wanted to avoid risk, not because he wanted to embrace it.

We can't completely avoid risk in our lives. Every time we drive a car, there is inherent risk as we make decisions about where we will go and how fast we will drive to get there. But despite the risks, few of us choose not to go. Similarly, smart entrepreneurs take reasonable and calculated risks where the benefits are likely to outweigh the inevitable risks.

If our goal in life is to avoid every potential problem, we will never experience real success. Almost every significant advance in society happened because somebody was willing to take a reasonable risk. There is a spirit of entrepreneurialism every time something new and bold and untested is undertaken. And even when our calculations are wrong and that snake bites us, we've accomplished something because hopefully we've learned something.

Whether or not we love taking the risk.

---

Andy Barfuss is affiliated with the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. He can be reached via e-mail at cfe@byu.edu.