My risk profile

Maybe you can't tell, I'm a person that would like to take some risks. Entrepreneurship is about pursuing opportunities, leadership is about making things happen. So there must be many risk factors along the journey of entrepreneurship. How should I deal with risks? Where is the baseline for taking risks? Let me try to figure out my risk profile.

My happiness does not rely on earning a lot of money. It is nothing bad with making a lot of money, but when I'm not having passion for my work and I don't have time for a quality life, I'd stay one step away from making more money. On the other hand, I won't have problems living an life without a lot of money. I eat two meals a day, haven't been to supermarket for two quarters. So my only daily expense is meal, and that won't take much.

Imagine I'm only having a regular salary as many other 'white collar' workers in China. Will I have problems with that? I don't think so. Because my happiness does not rely on the money I earn, instead it is the things I do. Renting an apartment would be the ideal choice for me in the next a few years rather than put the burden of loan on my shoulder for years on a house that I only have the ownership for decades.

Pushing the situation to an extreme, will I have problems to earn something for my living in the future? Will I be so poor as to beg for money and food? I don't think so. This is enough for me. The worse scenario is acceptable for me at least now, so risks don't mean as much anymore.

Failures is very natural. In a d.school class, my teammates asked me what if the users don't like our design. I said even if it is a failure, it is still something very important we learn. That class is working very hard to create an safe environment of creating things, which means you can try every wacky idea you can think of, but the students are still feeling unsafe about failures. This reminds me about how to create a safety environment for myself to create and explore along my life. I think it is to figure out the baseline of my risk profile.

And I think it is very clear for me now. Deal with failures properly, they are not good things, neither bad things.