No pain; no gain is another way of putting it. There are different ways of investing your money. Put it in a fixed deposit and you can be sure it is there pretty much intact always. Invest it into stocks, securities and the like; you can expect an increase in your wealth. But it can also go the other way and you can lose.

And that is pretty much the same in work. You are always faced with decisions.  There is typically a safe option and one that ventures more into the unknown. How do you decide? Is it always the riskier approach that would benefit?  Not necessarily, but the key is to understand the options and weigh correctly. One of the reasons why a riskier option tends to offer better results is that it goes against the grain. It is much more difficult for the competition to anticipate and gives the opportunity to take a lead. Risk also comes out of uncertainty. And again that is the nature of business. You are never certain of all the parameters. There is a fine line between a calculated risk and plain foolhardiness.  In taking a risk, I advocate an approach of being approximately right. The key message behind this is that you need to understand the impact of changes in your assumptions before deciding on the way to go. Once you can assess the risk, go ahead. A risk that cannot be estimated is foolhardiness.