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Articles
By Reva Nelson
I ran inside to see a dilapidated house with a living room, dining room with a kitchen sink and two cupboards in it and a back kitchen that was a bedroom (of sorts). Three bedrooms upstairs, a horribly small, awful bathroom. A huge octopus furnace in the basement. I peered under the linoleum and newpapers on the floor downstairs and found pine boards in the kitchen and hardwood elsewhere. Possibilities, I thought. We had almost no money, but I decided to see what might happen.
Back outside, the auctioneer started the bidding. At that time, a decent three bedroom house on a good street (all the other houses were bigger and beautiful) was selling for $55,000. (In case you start weeping, the equivalent Toronto price then was about $85,000.) The auctioneer opened at $50,000. No one bid. He went down to $45,000. No one bid. At $40,000, no one bid. My heart started to race. At $30,000, one man started bidding. So did I. The voice came out of my throat without me knowing. My heart began to thump wildly in my chest. The other man went to $31,000; I went to $32,000. My friend was screaming at me and everyone around us, "What are you doing? Do you know what you're doing? She's bidding and her husband isn't even here. What are you doing?" The man went to $33,000. I went to $34,000. He stopped. No one said a word. The auctioneer broke the silence, "Sold!" I'd bought a house, in ten minutes, $1,000 down, due the next day. We had $1002 in! the bank.
Most people, including me, were shocked at my quick decision. However, it wasn't a totally uncalculated risk. In fact, we'd been looking at houses; I knew prices. A friend was doing house renovations. I'd seen his work and had a sense of the amount of time, effort and cost this house would take. So, in effect, years before I developed a RISK CYCLE for use in my Positive Risk-taking seminars, I'd done exactly what I advise:
A. Acknowledge where you are. (We wanted to buy a house.)
B. Generate options. (We were renting a townhouse in the meantime.)
C. Examine possibilities. (We'd looked at, and priced houses.)
D. Weigh the decision. (Well, I did that in five minutes.)
E. Act. (I sure did.)
It was a great, exciting way to get into the housing market. Was it a risk? It sure the heck was. I had to call home to say, "I bought something rather large on my way downtown, dear."
The point is, ostensibly it looked like I took a wild risk. In reality, I was in a state of readiness, able to act in the moment on an incredible opportunity.
We can all improve our "POSITIVE RISK-TAKING" capabilities by being in a state of readiness always. Whether you're choosing new office furniture or expanding the company to new markets in China, keep the view of the future in mind constantly, trust your intuition and remain in a state of readiness, eager and able to act "in the moment."
Reva Nelson, author of RISK IT!, helps clients regain their perspective and become more innovative through seminars and keynote speeches on Positive Risk-taking, Humour, Communication and Resilience.