How I Repeatedly Land On My Feet After Taking Risks
We can all learn from cats, who use a ninja move called the “righting reflex,” to re-orient themselves as they fall.
I believe risk-taking is a learned behavior. Both of my parents have been business owners, both have been salespeople working for commission, both of them have chosen to forego a steady paycheck for the ebbs and flows of self-employment.
So from an early age, I was exposed to a way of living life that was more unpredictable. There would be windfalls — times when a huge commission would come in from the sale of a big house — and we’d all celebrate by going out to dinner. And there would be lean times, like when money was tight and my mom made a cheap meal of infamously inedible spoonbread for dinner.
(As an aside, I looked at a bunch of spoonbread recipes and it doesn’t look as gross as I remember it, so I’m not sure if she truly mucked it up, or if it was just our childish sense of taste that was offended.)
Consequently, I have grown up into someone who’s taken an unusual amount of risks in her life. Because the scope and scale of what’s considered risky varies a great deal from person-to-person, here are a few examples:
- In my mid-twenties I traveled extensively, alone, throughout southeast Asia. On one trip, I spent 2 months volunteering and 2 months traveling in India.
- My now-husband and I moved to New Zealand before we turned 30 (to take advantage of a working holiday visa program). We didn’t know anyone in New Zealand when we moved.
- After several months of burning the candle at both ends trying to start a business, we pitched our business idea to a startup accelerator program, got accepted, and I quit my job to pursue my dream.
- Last year, after 5 years living in New Zealand, we moved back to the U.S., leaving behind our careers, hard-earned network, and close friends. We spent a small amount of time in our home state of Wisconsin before moving to Colorado.
- Recently, I quit my job again to pursue a career in freelance writing and marketing consulting full-time.
People in my family consistently marvel at my ability to, like a cat, regularly land on my feet. I have received this compliment over and over again, in birthday cards, during catch-up phone calls, during my exit interview with my boss at my last job.
I am amazed at their amazement because I think it’s obvious how hard I work every time to evaluate my decision and ensure a smooth landing. Since this is something that I get constant commentary on and is seemingly a somewhat unique skill, I thought it time I shared a few tips for those looking to up the ante in their own lives.
The good news is that this is a skill you can learn by practicing the art of strategic risk-taking. My techniques are as follows:
1. Start taking risks as early in life as possible
Perhaps subconsciously, in order to get good at falling, cats begin climbing things from an early age. Climbing trees (or your furniture) is a good way for them to not only build up their leg strength but to practice falling from various heights.
Start by taking little risks, then take little risks more frequently, then increase the size of the risk. You don’t want to be the kitten stuck in a tree who has to be rescued by a handsome fireman (or do you?). Either way, you have to practice regularly to build up the muscle memory in your brain for how to go about taking risks, and to gather data on what constitutes a good risk for you.
Little risks can be things like taking up a new hobby, talking to a stranger in an airport, submitting your first short story for publication. A risk is really anything where there’s a possibility of failure.
It’s also important to remember that “early in life” is relative. If you live until 100 and start taking risks at 50, that’s still 50 years to practice risk-taking! But like learning a new language, it does get harder the older you get, so the earlier you start, the better.
2. Look Before You Leap
Sometimes things look better — more glamorous, adventurous and exciting — from a birds-eye view than they do when you get down on the ground. When you are standing on the ground and you see things at eye-level, you are forced to acknowledge the good and the bad. If you see the bad and think it’s still worth it, then at least you know what you’re in for. No nasty surprises.
So before you start down a new path, make sure you do an exploratory mission. Scout it out. What’s it like where you want to go? Think of yourself as an investigative journalist, trying to find out as much as possible about this future you are choosing for yourself.
If it’s a career move, here are some questions you might want to find the answers to:
- How much money do you need to live on, and how much can you make on this new career path?
- What are the benefits that are the most important to you? Whether it’s flexibility, remote work, PTO or salary, you need to know if those match with the change you’re eyeing up.
- What’s a day-in-the-life like? What does it look and feel like to wake up every day and be a freelance writer, a startup founder, an artist, a salesperson, a nurse or a teacher? Read everything you can get your hands on. Find the people who are doing the thing you want to do and talk to them. Get the scoop.
- What’s the best possible outcome? What’s the worst? Are you okay with both?
Of course, sometimes the Universe just pushes you off the diving board of life and you have to improvise on the way down. All I can say is, if this happens to you, I hope you have some practice with risk-taking so that you can instinctively begin pulling tools out of your toolbelt like McGyver and build yourself a parachute in midair. But for pre-meditated falls, a little bit of planning can go a long way.
3. Brainstorm a Series of Possible Scenarios
Life is notoriously unpredictable, so you are going to need more than Plan A. Plan A is, of course, the best-case scenario. Plan A is your dream come true. And it’s important to play that out completely — from start to finish. What does it look like, all going well?
If you could borrow the car from Back to the Future and go visit yourself 10 years from now, what would you find? What would you observe about your future, Plan A self, if you spent a whole day together? Then, put the car in reverse and back all the way up to today, putting milestones and goals in place for how you are going to manifest that future vision of yourself.
Okay, time for Plan B. What is the second-best outcome? What’s another possible path that could make you happy? Do the same exercise as you did with Plan A — play it out completely. Imagine the future of this other life, and write out how you would make it successful. And again with Plan C.
Because realistically, by the time we reach adulthood, most of us are on Plan C.
In a recent episode of This American Life, Ira Glass relates an anecdote about a time when he was giving a talk to a room full of 100 people, and he asked them, “how many of you are still living Plan A?” Out of the 100 people he was speaking to, only one person raised their hand, and it was the youngest person in the room.
4. Find Out Which Direction the Wind Is Blowing
Timing is everything. If a cat jumps from a 10-story window in a hurricane, it’s chance of landing safely probably isn’t the same as if it jumps on a calm, sunny spring day.
What’s the economic climate like? Which careers are currently highly competitive? Which have the most opportunities? I wouldn’t worry too much about whether or not it’s a “crowded industry.” I believe that if you are passionate, talented, and love what you do, you’ll get noticed.
However, I would pay attention to industries or careers that are currently being disrupted by new technology or politics. Maybe you ultimately decide to have a go of it anyway — and more power to you — but you should know what you’re in for.
For example, when we decided to move to New Zealand, there were several factors that reduced the size of the risk we were taking. First off, because we were under 30, we both qualified for the Working Holiday Visa program. This meant we were both immediately able to get any sort of employment. My now-husband was also on the country’s national skills-shortage list, meaning he had an essential skill that many employers needed.
There’s a lot to be said about good timing in your big life choices, and in your daily life choices. For more reading on that, I’d recommend Daniel Pink’s new book: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
5. Your Chance of Landing on Your Feet is Directly Proportional to the Height From Which You Fall
For cats, a chance of injury from a fall is inversely proportional to the height from which they fall. That is to say, a cat has a greater chance of landing on its feet and strutting casually away from a fall from a window 32 stories high than a fall from a window on the third story of a building.
For humans, the opposite is true. The higher the perch from which you are jumping from, the bigger the risk, the greater the chance of failure, the larger the repercussions. This is why I recommend taking small risks first. Start with box jumps before you climb up to the highest diving board.
My sister’s cat, Little Man (honestly, we tried various other names but nothing else would stick) is the exception to this rule, but I believe he was also lucky. When I was in college, he fell out of our second-story apartment window, bounced off of Jamba Juice’s awning below, and landed on his feet. He then proceeded into Land’s End, where he was greeted with what I can only assume was applause, pats, and eventually (this is true) tins of Fancy Feast.
That is to say, the are always exceptions to the rule, there are always some unknown disadvantages and perks, and points are awarded for style.
On Avoiding Analysis Paralysis
A couple of years ago, my sister was working at the DNR in Wisconsin. She was unhappy with her job, which was more of a paper-pushing position, and wanted to get back out into the field to do research.
To evaluate her options, she created a spreadsheet of all the possible choices she could make, and their respective pros and cons. Then, when she felt she had thoroughly explored all her the alternatives, she arrived at a state of mind she termed “analysis paralysis.”
She could see all the pros and cons staring back at her from an excel spreadsheet. She had done her research and had a variety of different life plans mapped out, but ultimately felt unsure of which one should be her Plan A.
In this scenario, I would recommend stepping away from the data. Let all the information absorb and settle. With a bit of breathing room, the right answer will manifest and you’ll have a gut instinct for which path is really calling to you.
Now that you know how to land on your feet, are you ready to start taking risks?
