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06/06/12 | Uncategorized

7 Steps Toward Finding Your Niche – And Daring To Risk

How to launch your strategy for taking the right risk.

By Wandia Chiuri (Social Media Enterprise Architect, Wandia.info)

With the recent Facebook pie-in-your-face IPO still ringing in our ears, it might be wise to dwell on what constitutes taking the “right risk” for you. Like it or not, risk taking will always be an inesapable part of our everyday lives. Whether you are changing jobs, investing, or beginning a new relationship you will ultimately be confronted with some risk. But here’s the kicker question: How do we know if the risk is right for you?

In a recent interview, Robert Michael Fried, best selling author of Igniting Your True Purpose and Passion, offered “the risk is right when it will help you close the disparity or gap between who you are and where you want to go. When your outside view of the world reflects your inner voice, you are will on your way to taking the right risk.”

Make no mistake about it – it takes courage to take the right risk, but the greatest rewards go to those who take them. So if we don’t take any risks in life, we lessen the risk of getting hurt – but we don’t live life to the fullest either.

As Seneca once pined, “It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”

That being said, Fried offers up 7 jumpstarting steps to take the right risk:

  1. Listen to your heart. Follow your heart, not just your reason. You seldom go wrong when you listen to your own inner voice.
  2. Get out of your comfort zone. Golden opportunities often lie just outside our comfort zone. Have the courage and fortitude to grab that brass ring.
  3. Avoid analysis paralysis. Do your homework, but ultimately you need to take action.
  4. Somehow the biggest risk is not to risk at all. Don’t wait for your ship to come in… row out and meet it.
  5. Don’t wait for the perfect time. There will never be a truly perfect time to act. In life, you generally learn more by doing than waiting. The perfect time to act is now!
  6. Face your fears. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Have the courage to work through your fear and use it to propel your spirit and rekindle your focus.
  7. Live in the present. Make the present the primary focus in your life, not the past or the future. Remember, life is a gift; that’s why they call it a present. The present moment is all you’ll ever have in your life.
  8. Take the leap. Aristotle once said, “Courage is the first of all human qualities because it is the one that guarantees all others.” Have the courage to take the leap and close the gap between your dreams and reality.

In business, a successful strategy offers a clarion call to action. But an action strategy often requires a certain degree of risk. Once a company completes its market research with due diligence, it’s time to pull the ripcord.

Similarly, in life, it’s not good enough to just have a mission. We need to act. When was the last time you risked failure for something you passionately believed in?

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Wandia Chiuri is a digital, mobile and social media aficionado. She has designed a career that combines an avid interest in global emerging markets with enthusiasm for adventure, fascination with science and passion for people. With a track record of leadership, she has worked in the sales divisions of two Fortune 500 corporations, Medtronic Inc. and Eli Lilly and Company and serves on the boards of two non-profit organizations. Follow her on Twitter at @Wandia_Info.

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland, an intern with Women 2.0, was on the StartupBus. She studies neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she is trying to merge a passion for tech and the brain into a new wave of cognition-based technology

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