These words by Thomas Jefferson hold true even\ntill date and will hold gravity till times immemorial. There is a tremendous\npaucity of audacious people, who venture towards unexplored horizons to achieve\nsomething big in their life. The world teems so much with such timid souls that\nthose who go off the beaten path and add a different meaning to their lives by\ntaking risks appear like a tiny bubble in the vast ocean of hesitant people.\nBut time and again, this tiny bubble sends ripples across the waters compelling\nus to ponder whether it is wise to merely stay safe at the harbour rather than\nsailing into the infinite unexplored expanse of the seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me take you back to the period when humans\nhad just started asserting their dominance on the earth. The time when the\nentire animal population used to fear the elements of nature, a man dared to\ncreate one of them by himself. Fire, an element of nature that remained elusive\nfor ages, was produced by the early man by rubbing stones and producing heat\nthrough friction. He also invented the wheel that facilitated locomotion. If a\nman had not ventured out to achieve these feats, could we ever have had such a\nthriving civilisation on the planet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Millenniums later, different continents were\nlargely disconnected with each other. There was a widespread misconception of\nthe world being flat and ships falling off the edge if they went out far in the\nsea. Nevertheless, a brave-heart named Christopher Columbus set out on his ship\nto debunk this theory and arrive at the knowledge of the planet being round.\nHad it not been for explorers like Vasco de Gama, Magellan and a few\nothers, new lands like America would not have been discovered and the\ncontinents would have been largely disconnected from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me teleport you to the year 1879. This is\nthe year when Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric
\nbulb. Do you know that Edison failed innumerable number of times before he\ncreated the incandescent light bulb? If Edison had not failed, he\nmight not have lit up a revolution and might not have become one of the\ngreatest inventors of all times. He said, \u201cI have not failed, I have just found\n1,000 ways that won\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBoth fortune and love befriend the bold.\u201d These\nwords said by Ovid 2,000 years ago, clearly demonstrate the need for aspiring\nentrepreneurs, academicians and change-makers to take risks in their lives. It\nmay seem easy to take risks when one has nothing to lose. However, it becomes\nan arduous task to do the same when your dream depends on sacrificing your bank\nbalance, happiness and financial security of your family. This can deter even\nthe best examples of thrill-seekers to succumb to the warm, reassuring embrace\nof caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would like the reader to know a little about\nthe life of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of Reliance Industries. Can\nyou imagine that Dhirubhai Ambani stunned people at Aden by diving into the\nshark-infested waters from a ship and returning to the shore safe, in response\nto a bet? His risk-taking ability that was far higher than the contemporary\nbusiness of his time was one of the factors that contributed to the laying of\nthe foundation of one of the most significant examples of entrepreneurship in\nIndia. He had been advised by his father not to foray into business; however,\nhis bravado pushed him to sink his life savings of $3,000 in the business of\ntextiles, spices and cotton. The initial days were tough but as it is generally\nsaid, \u2018smooth seas never made a good sailor\u2019, Dhirubhai Ambani never gave in to\nthe tribulations of venturing into the off-beaten path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNothing ventured, nothing gained\u201d means that we\ncannot expect large profits, unless we are willing to run the risk of losing\nsomething. This saying is often used as an argument in favour of gambling\nbecause the gambler by running the risk of loss obtains the chance of making a\ngain. But, although we cannot expect high profits without the risk of loss, it\ndoes not follow that it is reasonable to risk our money on the gambling table.\nGambling takes a tremendous amount of valuable time, and it exhausts the brain\nmore than most kinds of brain work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surely, it must be clear that to waste so much\ntime and so much brain-power, without the certainty or even the probability of\nadding to one\u2019s wealth, is the height of folly. This, even if we leave out of\naccount the bad effect that gambling has upon the moral character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one should ever purchase the chance of gain\nby the risk of loss unless he has good reason to believe that the probability\nof profit exceeds the risk of loss. As a matter of fact, in almost all\nlotteries a large percentage of the value of the tickets goes to pay the\nexpenses of management so that the subscriber\u2019s chance of a prize is\nconsiderably less in value than the sum he pays for his ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A sensible businessman would not care to\nspeculate on such terms. He is, however, quite willing to undergo a small\namount of risk, when there is a favourable prospect of obtaining massive\nprofits. The shopkeeper or merchant knows well enough that some of the goods he\nbuys may depreciate in value before he can find a purchaser for them, and that\nit is entirely possible that he will, in the end, have to sell them at a loss.\nBut he has reasonable grounds for trusting that in the course of the year his\nprofits will, to a considerable extent, exceed his losses, or else he would try\nsome other means of earning a livelihood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is, indeed, as indicated by the proverb we\nare considering, a close proportion between gain and risk. In the first place,\nthe profit obtained in any mercantile speculation is divided among the partners\naccording to the quantity of capital subscribed. Other things being equal, the\npartner who risks Rs. two lakh in business will
\nreceive twice as large a share of the profits as a partner who only risks Rs.\none lakh. If we compare different speculations, we find that, where there is\nmuch danger of loss, there is a prospect of correspondingly great gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you lend money to an unstable party, you will\nbe in great danger of losing both interest and capital, but in compensation,\nyou may get interest for several years at the high rate of twenty percent. On\nthe other hand, while the holder of Government Bonds is secure against heavy\nloss; he gets interest for his money at the rate of less than three percent.\n\nThe clever man of business is better able than his
\nrivals to calculate the risk of any particular speculation and by his superior\nknowledge increases his wealth.
\nHe plunges boldly into some speculation which he knows to be less dangerous\nthan it is supposed to be the
\nworld at large, and so gains large profits, though not without risk of loss. It\nmust, however, be remembered that to make such venturesome speculations with\nsuccess requires the highest intellectual capacity on the part of the\nspeculator.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These words by Thomas Jefferson hold true even till date and will hold gravity till times immemorial. There is a tremendous paucity of audacious people, who venture towards unexplored horizons to achieve something big in their life. The world teems so much with such timid souls that those who go off the beaten path and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}