You have a unique and unrepeated combination of skill, experience, talent, opportunity, and passion that enable you to add value in your community and in your world, and to make a difference in ways that no one has before and no one will again.
Stop Playing Safe: Rethink Risk. Unlock the Power of Courage. Achieve Outstanding Success – Margie Warrell
Isn’t God wonderful to make ONE of you, and we get to be here at this time to see it, experience it, and be a part of it with you?
God has called you into this entrepreneurial life to take courage and move forward. He has designed you with your personality and talents to help others uniquely. No one else has your combination of skills, experience, and passion for solving your client’s problem.
It can be challenging to have courage in our day-to-day when we also know the risks involved. We face choices and challenges that test our courage and put our insides in turmoil.
And you do need to assess risk-taking skills and take courage as an entrepreneur to:
- Speak the truth others need to hear
- Stand out
- Ask for what you really want
- Push back
- Go the extra mile inspired by what’s possible
- Take a leap of faith across the chasm of uncertainty towards a future that inspires
What stops us, though, from taking these risks and having courage? One thing is our personality. So, yes, your design can be the thing that keeps you from making the decisions you need to make and keeps you afraid.
In this post, we will look at how:
- Your personality affects your risk-taking skills
- You can move through your limitations
- God wants to grow you through this risk-taking entrepreneurial adventure
Risking entrepreneurship
Let’s face it, being an entrepreneur is hard work. And, if we’re afraid at every turn to face people, make decisions, and execute plans, we will fail. That’s not what I want for you and certainly not what God wants.
But what gets in our way, and why does it seem like some people don’t have the same problems as you do when it comes to “going for it?”
The answer is your personality.
Understanding how God created you
For the most part, in today’s world, there is a major identity crisis. It begins with the fact that people don’t know who they are, how they function, why they feel the way they do, and what they can do about it.
When you understand that God has created you in a certain way, you can get past the objections you are giving yourself for not pursuing the risk and find ways to overcome it.
Let’s start by addressing activities you need to do as an entrepreneur you may find uncomfortable.
- Speaking the truth others need to hear
- Standing out
- Asking for what you really want
- Pushing back
- Going the extra mile inspired by what’s possible
- Taking a leap of faith across the chasm of uncertainty toward a future that inspires
These are things an entrepreneur needs to be able to do. In my program, Calling Clarity, we have exercises and activities that help you understand God’s design of you and how that affects your approach to your business.
Assess your level of risk-taking skills
Before we look at these entrepreneurial activities, let’s take your risk-taking temperature.
In Calling Clarity, we use the Myers-Briggs assessment, which breaks down personalities into 16 styles and four groups regarding risk-taking skills assessment.
- High level risk takers
- Calculated level risk takers
- Security level risk takers
- Least willing risk takers level
You may not know your Myers-Briggs designation, but you should be able to spot some general ways you respond and act when facing risk.
High level risk-taking skills
As you can imagine, the highest risk takers can lean into trying new combinations of strategies and experimenting with solutions. If this is you, you can see patterns in the external world and connect those different things. As a result, you are usually highly optimistic and see new possibilities everywhere.
On the flip side, you can be impulsive. You also may create change quickly to escape any present discomfort. And, you can be flighty and hard to pin down by others when they need you.
Calculated level of risk-taking skills
Maybe you are more of a calculated risk taker. That means you dive deep into patterns within the human mind instead of externally. As a result, you can shift perspectives to understand yourself and others better. It’s almost like you can see into the future and how it will develop.
The other side is that you may become paranoid and even fearful of the future because you start assuming the worst-case scenarios will be the only future. This may make you afraid of everything.
Security level risk-taking skills
Or maybe you are a security risk taker. When things are going well in one area of your life, you are more willing to take risks in other areas. Since you learn through movement and activity and are fully present in the moment, you are aware of how your physical environment is affecting you and adjust from there.
A secure home environment, for example, is essential to how you function day-to-day. You love pushing yourself and your surroundings to the limits when you are at your best. You will get ahead of problems by quickly taking action when in a good place.
But, when you are pushed too much, you become self-indulgent. You want to feed your cravings (whatever that may be). So, you take an “I deserve a break attitude,” shut down, and won’t consider the consequences or how your actions impact others.
Least willing to take risks level
The last risk-taking behavior deals with those least willing to take risks. You remember your experiences and their impact on you. You crave stability and tradition, and for that reason, you honor precedent. For you, things need to be proven and have an order. You will create an order if it is not present so you can function.
The problems arise from wanting to keep order, knowing what will happen, and when you can expect it. You may retreat to your comfort zone physically and psychologically when pushed. Unfortunately, this only gets you stuck in ruts because you refuse to venture out of what is familiar to you.
So, what’s your temp? Are you a super risk taker and excited, or are you thinking, “why did God ask me to be an entrepreneur”? It’s okay. If God has called you, He has equipped you.
Daily risk-taking skills
Let’s look at those activities from earlier and give you some practical ways to approach them, looking through the lens of your risk-taking personality.
Speaking the truth others need to hear
To be honest, this comes from practice. You’ve heard of ‘doing it scared.’ Well, this is when you have to keep speaking the truth to your followers, clients, and team members, no matter what you THINK will happen or what they might say.
We need to be honest in our dealings with people.
Righteous lips are the delight of kings, And he who speaks right is loved.
Proverbs 16:13 NLT
Gain confidence that your words will be heard and understood because you do what God has given you.
Standing out
Standing out can be tricky for Christian Women. We know we need to ‘market’ ourselves when we are in business. But there is the pride issue we push up against so often.
As an entrepreneur, you want to be known for what you do and how you do it. It’s your brand. Create a brand that reflects who and whose you are, and you will always stand out the right way.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Matthew 5:13 NLT
As a believer in Christ, we do stand out. So let’s stand out and be salt and light.
Asking for what you really want
God’s purpose for you through your business is to make you more like His Son. He wants to transform you by growing you closer to Him. When this happens, what you want is what God wants for you. Remember, God’s ways are perfect. He has your best at heart.
Don’t be afraid to ask Him to help you set goals. And don’t be scared when those goals seem too big or impossible. Things may also not always work out how you thought they would, and that’s okay. Don’t be afraid when that happens. Use it as an opportunity to learn.
God wants to give you the desires of your heart just like Psalm 37:4 says. It is when your desires align with God’s desires that you will succeed. The first part of the verse tells us HOW to align with God.
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4 NLT
As I always say, “Grow your faith so it fuels your business.” It really does work.
Pushing back
Because asking what you want from God is one thing, but asking what you want from others may lead to you needing to push back on their demands. This is when conflict can make some of us want to retreat into our comfort zones and not try anymore.
Everyone will not like you, but that’s okay. You were not meant to serve everyone. You were meant to help those God has called you to serve.
Of course, our ‘pushback’ should never be biting or offensive. We are called to do the right thing in all situations. We always want to display godly wisdom when we respond to a post, a client request, or even a team member’s grievances.
By standing up for the right thing, you are practicing that godly behavior, which will become second nature.
Luke 8:15 shows us what happens when we have our roots in God:
But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.
Luke 8:15 NLT
My encouragement is to keep going.
Going the extra mile inspired by what’s possible
The beauty of entrepreneurship is in all the possibilities. But that can lead to burnout. So going the extra mile means not giving up and doing your best while moving toward what’s possible.
God expects our best. He has told us to do this already. I think of what Jesus told us in Matthew 5:41, Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
We are not to do this grudgingly, but we must do it out of genuine concern for those we serve. Sometimes we may feel we are the ones giving, being vulnerable, and taking all the risks. Yet, God calls us to do just that. To have a different mindset, to have His mind.
When we practice doing more for others, doing more for the work He has called us to do, and are just willing to do whatever He asks of us; we benefit from the satisfaction of doing our job well.
Taking a leap of faith across the chasm of uncertainty toward a future that inspires
How can we keep doing what we are doing in business when we may not be the high risk-takers we ‘think’ we need to be? I know I face almost every day.
The answer is to trust God. It’s that simple.
Meet with Him each day. Learn about Him through studying His Word. Stay with Him as much as you need to so you can have the courage to do what He is asking you to do.
God has you on an adventure with Him. It started when you became a follower of Jesus, a Christian, a disciple. Then God called you to entrepreneurship. His way of growing you as a disciple in Jesus. It is so exciting!
God has given you every experience, every talent, and every skill, so you can stand here today and walk into this adventure without fear, ready to take the risk.
Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.
Deuteronomy 31:6
It was true for Joshua, and it is true for you. God will provide exactly what you need when you need it so you can move forward to your future.
Your risk-taking skills level
How do you feel about your risk-taking level? What are you thinking? Tell me in the comments how you see your level of risk and willingness to take risks. I know you may be thinking, I’m not sure I can keep doing this, but that’s okay. God has put a resource in front of you. I’m in a place to help you get clarity. To see if what you are feeling and thinking is what God is showing you.
We all need help from time to time. We need to understand what to do next, how to transition to something more, and how to get unstuck from our thinking. So I invite you to have a clarity conversation with me. Let’s chat about God’s pull on your heart and how you can move forward even if you know the risks and are afraid.
Leave a Reply