I’ve taken some tumbles myself. A big tumble came last summer when I was doing a job search. I had a good meeting with a company that was looking for someone to do business development for them. I had a very good first interview and was invited back for a second one. The owner of company called morning of second meeting and said he had to postpone meeting until after weekend because of time deadlines. Okay.

On Monday I called and left a message. No returned call. The next day I tried phone and an email. Nothing. On Wednesday, I got ahold of second in command who was in on meeting. He said I needed to talk with owner, and that he would call me back. I heard nothing more. I gave one more attempt on Friday and never heard a word.

Did I do something to offend them? Did they think I was a loser who couldn’t possibly help them? Was I overly naïve and put too many eggs in this one basket? I don’t know what happened and may never find out. But what I learned from that experience was to bounce back and keep doing what I needed to do in order to support my family.

I decided a while after this incident to restart my business, which is another excellent opportunity to fall. But it hasn’t been so far. I’ve been meeting a lot of new people and getting new clients on a weekly basis. But it is a risk.

I was talking with a gentleman who had owned his own business for thirty-five years. He told me, “I didn’t go into business for myself to make a lot of money. I just wanted to control my own life.”

Life is risky. We are learning in current economy that it can be risky to even have a day-to-day job with a company. Risk can be fun, and it can be ulcer producing. So, take a bit of a risk right now. It doesn’t have to be something big. It takes a while to develop your risk muscles. It can start with little stuff and then move onto something bigger.

© 2005, Dave Carlson, All Rights Reserved

Dave Carlson is the owner of Venturewide Internet Marketing, specializing in helping businesses succeed on the Web through search engine optimization and pay per click marketing. He can be reached at 720-922-3124. See his Web site at www.venturewide.com .

In my thinking, that's adult equivalent of my son, as a child, pretending he never noticed toilet paper roll needed replacing. He'd leave a sheet or two on cardboard tube so he didn't have to be one to do anything about it. Of course no one in house was fooled. No one at work is either.

In twenty years of management, I've learned that difference between doing right thing and easy thing significantly differentiates people's performance. We can debate what right thing to do is at any given time. Sometimes, it might be choosing more difficult, challenging, time-consuming path or one that comes with more risk. But like my son and that stewardess, I think most of us know what right thing is most of time, and we know when we've chosen easier way.

In Lee Ann Womack's country hit, "I Hope You Dance," there's a great line that applies as much to work as it does to life: "I hope you'll never fear those mountains in distance; Never settle for path of least resistance." You see, if you want to be winning at working, you can't fear mountains of change, discomfort, conflict, unpleasantness, hard work, or difficult choices.

(c) 2005 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.