Starting a business is always risky. For those of us who’ve started successful businesses we’ve had to balance risks and the promise of rewards. Sometimes you feel the fear but do it anyway, because if you don’t do it, there will be a part of your life that never gets lived.

There are other risks that we take that seem to have nothing to do with our work life but the risks we take in our personal lives are intertwined with the risks we take in our business.

I got to experience what I considered to be a risk, and move through my fear at a water park in Biot, France with my fifteen-year-old son. My son has always loved amusement parks and water parks; the scarier the ride, the better. I’ve developed an intense dislike for both. The bottom line is that I hate not being in control, and being spun around like a top by an exterior force that I can’t stop. Just being in a theme park was enough to feel like my stomach was in my throat.

During our recent trip to France, my son went online and discovered a water park thirty minutes away. As hard as I tried I couldn’t get out of taking him there. I warned him that I wouldn’t go on any of the water rides with him. I went with him knowing I would be bored. I even took a book to read.

Once we got there, I was impressed at how different this water park was from ones I’d experienced here in California. It was very clean; it didn’t feel overcrowded and rushed. I imagined myself going on some of the slides. I decided I would try going down one and felt comfortable enough knowing that it would be okay if I changed my mind if it felt too out of control.

I got my son to go on the slide with me. I summoned all of my courage, visualized the ride down, turned off my negative thoughts, climbed the stairs and slid down into the water. I proceeded to several more slides that were higher and steeper, and each time it got easier and more fun.

I felt like this was a great achievement. I had broken through a fear barrier and was successful. 

I realized that there was a business corollary to this “magnificent accomplishment.” Having a successful business, creating a new product and getting it to market means taking a risk but we can control when we launch our new products, who we involve and knowing that if we fail we can use it as a learning opportunity and do it differently next time.

Simma Lieberman