I'm Not A Smart Man, But I Know What Risk Is

A man had run a business for fifty years. His company manufactured machines that peeled shrimp. Rather than selling the machines, they leased them. That model meant that his company assumed all the risk if a machine were to break down.

"Usually it works out. It doesn't always work out. But that's the nature of risk. And what's risk? What's the worst that could happen? I'll still be alive."

A Long Night

The rock band Dispatch had a long career devoted to the purest principles of their music. At one point they turned down a million-dollar deal because the corporation was proposing to own all the creative aspects of their work, and require them to re-record some of their originals. After a while they'd mostly stopped performing, and decided to have a free farewell concert in Boston for their fans. They thought that maybe 20,000 would show up. When they arrived on the morning of the five o'clock evening concert, there were already 45,000 people there. Final tally was 110,000. A few years later they decided to do a reunion show at Madison Square Garden in New York, and sold out three nights.

"We were an overnight success; it just took twelve years," they said.

They gave the million-dollar three-day take to charity.

Surviving The Contract Killer

A man in his midtwenties suffered a blow to his upstart business. A client providing $30,000 per month abruptly pulled out of the deal, transforming his situation from barely making income to experiencing huge losses. These days, the man is a multi-millionaire. Looking back, he explained his outlook:

"I realized that may be it was good, in that I went through a superhorrible ordeal early on, and because of going through it early on, for one thing, I got myself some fantastic attorneys. And I have better, more ironclad contracts will all my processors than I would have if I'd never gone through that nightmare. So does that make it good luck? I think it does."

Not once during the debacle did he ask himself whether he could afford to stay in business. In his mind, staying in business - somehow, some way - was a given.

Two states - success and learning. Sounds better than success and failure.