That’s Philippe Petit, walking a rope between the Twin Towers.
What would you say if I ask "can you do that?"
You'd say "no, I cant."
Or "yes, just need practice."
That means if you can walk on a rope with practice, you can do anything with practice. Such as taking risks.
But do people get better at taking risks by practice?
You will figure it out by the end of this essay.
First, let’s examine…
What does a ropewalker know that you and I don’t?
After studying them for years, I found their secret lies in focus and balance.
But how do they acquire both?
Their simple strategy:
Start with baby steps.
Take calculated risks one by one.
Increase the stakes each time.
Can we apply it to our careers and life?
Definitely!
From starting a business to learning a music instrument.
I have applied it to everything.
Taking small risks has led me to places I never would have dared to venture.
Story time.
I spent half of my 2018 traveling solo.
One morning in Mansehra, I was checking bus fares sitting at Pakistan Hotel.
I had to reach Gilgit but—like always—I was short on money.
In budget of a month, I wanted to travel for six months.
So I found myself in a unique situation.
If I spend money on transport, how would I eat? 🤔
I had sorted sleeping by investing in a tent and sleeping bag earlier.
Eating and moving remained my biggest expenses.
I looked at my backpack, thinking of things I could sell to cash myself.
The bus and car prices to Gilgit were soaring.
I wished…
I had some super power to fly to my destination.
In that moment, my late grandmother came to my mind.
A champ at walking. At 80 years, she’d walk 15 - 20 km without a hitch.
I pulled out my phone. Googled to check which road goes to Gilgit.
To my surprise, it was the one I was sitting at.
The road outside the hotel was N-35 aka Karakoram Highway.
I looked out and it was there. 👀
I could get up, pay my bill, and start walking to Gilgit.
There was no friction.
I only had to make a decision:
Play safe — Spend 5000 on bus to reach Gilgit tomorrow.
Play risky — Spend 0 and use my super human power i.e. my feet.
I was afraid for a moment.
A lot of doubts came to arrest me:
Gilgit on foot is a huge risk.
You are over-weight — round 88 kg.
You never walked more than a kilometer.
And what of the heavy backpack?
…hence, a recipe for disaster. 🥺
I ditched the idea.
Almost convinced myself to stop bullshitting and buy a bus ticket, sharafat se. (?)
Then I thought: If I am spending money, why not do it a bit farther on the road? I can get the bus from any city ahead.
I told myself, let’s try it.
Let’s see if I can break Dadi’s record.
I came out and started walking in the direction of Gilgit.
After six tough hours and 10+ breaks, I reached Shinkiari.
It’s only 18 km from Mansehra.
If Dadi was alive, she would have been very disappointed.
Next day, I covered 40 km in 2 hours. Taking lifts from anyone who would give it.
In 13 days, I reached Gilgit.
Without spending a coin on transport.
Plus, I burned 3 - 4 kg fat.
Ate the best home food in KPK.
Experienced KKH town by town.
Made plenty of friends on the road.
Ventured to valleys I never knew existed.
Toured the most serene mental hospital in Dadar.
Stayed mostly at local homes with people who gave me lift.
End of story! Let’s analyze.
How was I able to take that risk
In truth, I never took the risk to walk to Gilgit.
I simply told myself: Try until I enjoy.
My baby step 👉 beat Dadi’s record.
20 km was my only commitment.
Gilgit was 354 km from Mansehra.
If I had aimed for 354 km, I would have died of laughter.
But shrinking the goal to 5 percent gave me the balls to say ‘let’s try it.’
What enabled me to NOT play safe
Two things:
Minimizing the commitment.
Starting with a baby step.
Exactly how the ropewalkers do it. They start with a 10 meter rope, tied above a soft surface. They never walk a 100 meter rope until they know they can handle it.
In my case, once momentum was built I raised the stakes slowly.
Was I exhausted on the first three nights? Yes.
But was I excited to put Dadi out of her own game? You bet. 🤩
Looking back, if I had played safe I would have never gained, learned, and enjoyed so much.
But risks are still scary…
What if I tell you risk is nothing to be afraid of.
In simple terms, risk means taking chances on yourself.
Why take chances, you ask? To find the key that unlocks your potential.
By taking chances, you wage war on inertia.
You create momentum.
Discover your true self.
Learn new and diverse skills.
Build battle-tested confidence.
Sharpen your ability to solve problems.
Set this in stone 👇
Taking chances increases your probability of success.
Risks are the fuel that drive your personal, professional, and spiritual growth.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
― Helen Keller
On the other hand
Comfort and safety are anchors.
If you are not taking risks, you stay stagnant.
You get old quickly. Your life becomes like a ship that stopped sailing, long ago.
Congratulations 🎉
You’ve read 30% of this essay.
You can take a break here and bookmark this page to continue later.
If not, let’s move on to our second section.
What stops us from taking risks
In the last week, I reached out to 12 people.
My question 👉 what are the top blockers to risk taking?
The most common turned out to be…
Let’s break down each blocker.
1. Fear of failure
This topped the responses I received.
But when I dug deep, I was surprised... 🐒
Most people don’t actually fear failure.
In reality, they fear the negative consequences of failure.
Loss
Shame
Embarrassment
Disappointment
These feelings prevent people from taking risks.
Let’s face it, nobody likes to feel ashamed. Been there plenty of times so I know it.
But how to counter it? The same way you counter every fear.
Remember the fear you had before riding a bicycle first time?
Recall how you overcame that fear of falling down.
It was simple 👉 You started riding the bicycle and the fear went away.
It died a slow and silent death.
Your bicycle experience proves…
Fear of failure can be dealt if we walk towards it with baby steps and are prepared to fall around sometimes.
Fix your relationship with failure.
If you think, failure is your enemy — you’re missing out all the fun.
Realize this 👇
Failure is NOT your enemy. It’s your teacher.
Failure is a school that teaches life lessons.
Let’s hear Reinhold Messner’s opinion about fear of failure.
For me, Messner is the best alpinist in the world.
In above video, he says, “I think I became a good high altitude climber for the fact that I have failed many times.”
He believes if you sit and wait, fear grows.
If you act, fear goes away.
According to Messner, fear is inversely proportional to action.
As you take action and move forward, the fear monster starts to shrink.
It becomes less threatening and eventually disappears altogether.
That’s how we deal with fear of failure. And barking dogs.
The key to defeating fear of failure 👇
Take the smallest possible action in your control. Grow from there.
2. Peer pressure
This is a big one in Pakistan.
Taking a tiny risk such as driving at night disturbs a lot of folks.
For example Ali Sadpara, Pakistani high-altitude mountaineer, died trying to do something he cared about.
Half of the country lost their mind. Some called his actions reckless.
“Allah ne jaan is liye thori di hai.”
Remember — Most people in our human society are risk averse.
Their advice is to take the safest route possible.
Respect their input but don’t listen to them.
Before you seek risk taking advice from someone, see if they ever walked out of their own comfort zone.
Understand this 👇
Experiences of our fathers, uncles, and Instagram influencers have nothing to do with ours.
You are a unique cosmic being.
Just like your DNA and finger prints, your experiences on earth are unique.
What works for others may not work for you.
And what didn’t work for them, it’s not necessary it won’t work for you.
When people limit you by telling their bad experiences, don’t let them.
They are projecting their own fears on you.
Duke magazine asked Reinhold Messner:
Our society hates risk. How did you approach risk during your career?
We live in an era which is against risk-taking. Over the last 10,000 years, humans have tried to minimize risk in order to build civilization.
Mountaineers do the opposite: they go their own way, acting against their instinct for self-protection.
Little by little, with millions of small steps, they master the art of going somewhere where they could die, without dying!
You learn to overcome risk.
When I climbed the north face of the Droites on my own, I was sure I could handle it. Otherwise I would have died from fear.
When I climbed Everest without oxygen, I had already reached similar altitudes before – it was only 800 meters more. We went there to try, step by step, but we were prepared to fail and to return.
3. Personal beliefs
1. The belief that failure is more likely than success is wrong.
It’s mathematically incorrect.
If you flip a coin, there are always 50 - 50 chances of both outcomes.
Thus, you can’t say there are more chances of failure until you’re doing your best.
2. The belief that job people are not risk takers is false.
Tim Cook is an employee of Apple for 25 years.
But is he a risk taker?
In 2014, he became the first CEO of a major company to come out as gay.
Talk about risking your corporate image to proudly be who you are.
We take risks knowing that they will sometimes result in failure, but without the possibility of failure there is no possibility of success.
― Tim Cook
3. If you believe risks mean reckless behavior, change your definition.
Think of it as anything that is unknown.
Then try to improve your ability to stay in this unknown zone.
You can train yourself for this.
Do small things that make you a little uncomfortable.
Take a new route to work tomorrow.
Try a different type of vegetable this weekend.
Brush your teeth with the non-dominant hand for days.
Close your eyes and walk backwards until you hit the wall.
Practice these actions to build up your ability to handle bigger unknowns.
It will help you get used to being in uncertain situations.
In a matter of days, you will reframe your thoughts.
You will view risks as an opportunity for fun and being crazy.
But under the surface, you will be laying solid foundations.
When you fail, remind yourself 👇
Taking chances leads to new experiences, skills, and connections.
4. Past experiences
Negative experiences or facing rejection can make you hesitant to taking risks.
Don’t lose faith. We all fail.
I fail to accomplish at least 2 - 3 things every day. 🙈 Sometimes more.
Even the gurus and geniuses fail big time.
But do they lose faith?
Think how film actors do audition after audition.
They face the most rejections on earth because of the nature of movie business.
But actors don’t take rejection seriously.
They take it like shots in the dark.
After 100 such shots, they trust they will land somewhere.
The only way to forget past experience is to learn from it and build new experiences.
Break the pattern. Challenge your own rigid beliefs.
Show yourself that YOU don’t make the same mistakes again.
You are an adaptive being. You can learn to handle your shit.
Trust yourself and…
Sing your song.
Write one page.
Create that website.
Remember Messner’s words 👉 Action kills fear.
Don’t feel ashamed to put his words on your mirror.
Or wallpaper if that’s what it takes to move the needle.
I have done it for years. Will never stop.
Hurray 🎊
You’ve read 70% of this essay.
Let’s move on to our final section.
How to make risk taking easy
Risks sound like a monster.
No matter how hard you try, they scare you.
But can we turn them into child’s play?
Yes, I have found five ways to remove the factor of fear from any risk.
Fear setting
Try until I enjoy
Exposure therapy
Visualization
Mentors
Let’s break them down.
1. Fear setting
Fear setting is a tool I stole from Tim Ferris.
Its job is to help you overcome your fears by preparing you in advance.
Before taking a big risk, map the underlying fears that are stopping you.
For each fear, find the why and how.
Write why are you afraid of it.
Three ways to overcome it.
Here’s an example.
2. The ‘Try Until I Enjoy’ Rule
Commit to a small portion of your goal for the fun of it.
Tell yourself you will only do it until you enjoy it.
Tone the risk down to a tune of 5 - 10 percent.
This reduces friction and helps you overcome procrastination.
It puts you on the road.
For example, if you want to grow your network to 1000 people, commit to sending three emails a week until you enjoy it.
Turn risks into games by making joy a part of the process.
Use the thrill of “how far can I go?” to your advantage.
So don’t build a ladder. Build a stepping stone.
Then ask yourself: can I build another?
Don’t start a business. Validate your idea on WhatsApp.
Don’t aim for building a clothing brand.
Break it down to these steps…
Buy samples
Visit a manufacturer
Sell to three people in network.
See if you find joy in the process.
I don’t believe in failure. It is not a failure if you enjoyed the process.
― Oprah Winfrey
3. Exposure therapy
It involves gradually exposing yourself your fear in a controlled setting.
For example, before skydiving I would expose myself to a smaller height such as the terrace of Burj Khalifa.
Taking the risk to become a speaker but afraid of public speaking?
Start by speaking in front of a small group of people.
Join a Toastmaster club in your area.
Gradually work your way up to larger audiences.
Therapists use exposure therapy to help people with trauma erasure.
If you have a fear of dogs, they will take you to meet friendly dogs.
Next week, they will ask you to pet a dog.
In a matter of months, you’d be ready to adopt a dog.
4. Outcome visualizations
Mountain climbers visualize their route for days before a climb.
They picture how will they cross the bottleneck, uncountable times.
Formula 1 drivers do the same.
Months before starting a race, they visualize taking the riskiest turns.
Their goal is memorize every turn on the track.
They try to feel the thrill in advance.
But we are no Formula 1 driver…
Let’s see how can we apply their trick to our life.
For any risk — Instead of thinking failure, picture what happens in case of success.
For example, if starting a new business, think about your journey from first 10 customers to 1000.
Visualize every part of it.
Use your imagination as leverage.
When you think of failure scenarios, you are working backwards.
You create thoughts that you don’t want to realize in life.
Think of what will you do if you succeed.
Stop worrying about no one visiting your new website.
Visualize your servers being crashed due to a viral video or tweet. 😃
This helps you build confidence and reduce anxiety.
Another example, if you're afraid of asking for a raise, visualize yourself confidently making your case to your boss and receiving a positive response.
Do this exercise before approaching any risky activity.
5. Find mentors online
Mentorship is learning on steroids.
Having a support system in place makes it easy to take risks.
You will have people who offer encouragement.
They will give the right advice, and help if things don't go as planned.
If you're quitting job to start a business, speak with people who did it.
Find similar businesses in your space.
Don’t think of them as competitor yet. But collaborator.
Speak with their owners online for advice and support.
Share your business idea, doubts, and hypothesis with them.
Let them in on the process and talk about your fears.
They may discourage or encourage you.
Sometimes they’d connect you with right the people.
Other times, they might ghost or laugh at you.
The key is to find mentors who are like-minded. People who are willing to help the community are easy to spot.
Reach out to them and be respectful of their time.
If need be, offer to pay a consultation fee in advance.
Don’t be afraid of investing in this, you’re renting a goldmine.
Their decades of learnings will save you from fooling around.
Mentors will help you build the confidence to take the risk.
To conclude…
Using the above five strategies you can adopt a lifestyle of risk taking.
Remember, risk taking is not tough.
It’s easy if you know how to approach it.
I have armed you with action steps to turn any risk into a game you’d love to play.
Over to you!
A small parting gift 🎁
To keep you in action for Monday.
Imagine how 👇 adventurers think of risks.
Until next week,
Hassaan
You had me moving again in life :D
Needed this push man!
Keep writing.
I'm dumbfounded by your writing skills. Storytelling at its best with smooth linking to lessons on personal growth.
It was more of a khayali biryani. Best. Best.