Legend holds that Cornelius Vanderbilt had built a massive fortune in the steamboat shipping industry, but then realized the railroads were the way of the future and invested almost his entire net worth into railroads. The gamble paid off and made Vanderbilt one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs ever. But risks are inherently…risky. How do you think about risk and how has it affected your life and career? Some of our community favorites share their perspective below.

Steve Lemig | Adventurer, Author, Blogger, Outdoor Advocate

I believe taking risks is an important part of the human experience. Without risk we wouldn’t learn much of anything. But for me, risk-taking isn’t an all-or-nothing practice. I take a more measured approach to taking risks. I do my research first, I stay within a reasonable distance of my abilities, and I stay open to both failure and success throughout the process. In my personal life, as an ultrarunner, backcountry snowboarder, and a backpacker, I’ve faced many risks in the outdoors. One of the best examples is the time I did a solo 42-mile run of Grand Canyon from the South Rim down to the bottom, up to the North Rim and back again. Read more>>

Austin Williams | Photographer & Fine Art Sales Consultant

I have always been a risk taker, it is a habit that has had plenty of negative consequences in my life – like the two vertebrae I fractured while snowboarding – but it has also been the trait most essential to my growth. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear.” This quote by George Addair is one that latched onto my consciousness early on, because of that, fear has become a sort of barometer for me. If there is fear behind a pursuit, it must be the right kind of fear, then I have confidence that I’m pushing myself in the right direction. All these huge decisions in my life – whether that’s building a bed in the back of my 4Runner to live on the road and become a rock climber, moving to California to work on a pot farm during Covid, or deciding to turn my passion of photography into a business – all of these decisions have been accompanied by fear. Not all went as planned, but all resulted in tremendous growth. Read more>>

Jon Engele | Landscape Photographer & Engineer

Oh wow, where to begin? To me, risk is one of those slippery words that gets thrown around in a negative sense, when in reality I see risk as another kind of opportunity. My mom has a great story she loves to tell about when I was nine years old or so at the Grand Canyon and since I couldn’t see over the wall, I climbed on the wall and began skipping along like I didn’t have a care in the world. Now, that particular example may be more on the reckless side than I’d be willing to do now, but that’s always been how I approach things. There’s a million and one inspirational quotes about being willing to take risks in life, but the best I’ve heard is, “security is mostly a superstition. It doesn’t really exist. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Read more>>

Anise Wirth | Massage Therapist (LMT)

Peak Recovery began as a leap of faith. I was working a dream job with a clinic in professional sports when an intuitive nudge kept coming to mind; that the company I was working with was not my end game. Long story short, I took an insane risk and put in my notice with no plan. 2 days after I put in my official notice, my husband received a job offer in Durango, CO that, I kid you not, was to start exactly one week after my last day at my job. If ever there were a louder sign…so we took it! And from there everything fell into place. Even our housing fell into our laps. The one thing that I couldn’t figure out was what angle I wanted to take my practice. Read more>>

Tracey Jacobs | Massage Therapist/ Elite bike racer/ coach

I approach risk with curiosity. Risk is inherent to growth, it is inevitable to grow so, I know I will come up against it all the time. I choose to look at it with a curiosity. I say to myself something like, “What would happen if I tried …..?” “What would happen if I did it this way?” Taking a risk is a step. It will not always be perfect but, being brave to take the next step into the unknown, knowing it might be sloppy, rough doesn’t matter because then the next step comes and so on until the thing is learned or honed. Knowing taking the risk, the step into the unknown with the mindset that it doesn’t have to be perfect-just try it. Read more>>