If there is one thing that differentiates the massively successful from the average, it is how they understand risk. The odds. How they calculate it. Or more importantly, how they don’t.

I’d like to speak from personal experience and share an example of someone I know who has achieved business and financial success. He’s a member of an advisory board I am on with a group of CEOs whom most would consider quite successful.

When I look at this group, I see people who think about action more than numbers. They don’t think about detailed business plans, they see big ideas. They see success as visions realized. They aren’t interested in the odds. They are fixated on what success looks like.

Let me give you an example. A few years back, at a meeting, one of our members decided that it would be a good idea to expand their business across Canada, open some satellite offices, and pursue contracts (he’s a specialty builder) in other provinces.

The questions were fast and furious. How would this affect EBITDA? What about cash flow? Have you done an analysis of provincial building codes? What about regional subcontractors? Maybe you should stay local and grow? What’s the rush? What about the risk??

But this entrepreneur has a vision. It isn’t a numerical one (although that logically follows). He wants a national company, and then an international one, with divisions in the US and Europe. He’s going for it, and not being held back from ‘paralysis by analysis’. And guess what…..the money will follow. And it did. His company has tripled in size since he started moving into other jurisdictions. He’s done it responsibly. But he’s never once worried about financial metrics. And he and his stakeholders are a lot richer as a result.

How do you think about investing? Are you investing based on numbers, or ideas? Are you excited about the future, or scared about losing capital? Do you calculate odds, and if so how? Can you find odds that are actually in your favor? What gives you an advantage? Are you playing by someone else’s rules, or your own? Do you have the skill to make smart investments? If not, are you willing to earn that skill?

Han Solo – Who famously flew into an asteroid field to escape imperial pursuit, was told by C3PO ‘the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1’. Han didn’t want to know that. Perhaps he was thinking about the implications of being destroyed by imperial cruisers vs. the danger of the asteroid field. Perhaps C3P0 logic was faulty. Who knows?

The one thing for certain is that ‘Who Dares, Wins’. Be careful who you listen to!

GLTA!