# Are You Risk Averse?

Source: https://geoffblades.com/are-you-risk-averse/
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2019-10-11
Author: Geoff

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Many Wall Streeters consider themselves risk averse and they make the mistake of assuming I am not.

Looking at my career choices—leaving Goldman to “do nothing” and leaving Carlyle to become a self-help expert—they assume I am risk loving, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It took me five years of planning to leave Goldman and for almost three years at Carlyle I was focused on leaving and sharing my ideas.

Like the majority of us, I am risk averse, it is just I have always measured risk a little differently to most.

When I was a kid growing up poor and dreaming of a better life, the risk wasn’t that I would fail in high school and university and end up where I started, the greater risk was that I would never aspire for more.

At Goldman, when I kept my job after half the office was laid-off, the risk wasn’t that I would be next to go, the greater risk was that I would stay in a job that I didn’t love.

When I got to Carlyle and realized the buy-side wasn’t everything I imagined, the risk wasn’t that I would leave and fail, the greater risk was that I would stay and live a shadow of the life I could imagine.

You see, I am incredibly risk averse, but my entire life the greatest risk I have avoided is looking back on my life wishing I had done it differently.

To dream and imagine and chase the life that might be is only a risk if you see the world differently.