With Greater Risks You Can Get Greater Rewards

Are you getting what you really want in life right now? Are you enjoying the overall success you feel you deserve? Do you have the job or career you really want? Does your current job or career provide the financial benefits that will earn all the options in life you wish to enjoy? Are the relationships you share with the quality of people you want to be with, and are they experienced at the depth you want? Are your current health, fitness and physical attractiveness where you want them to be?

Some men have good intentions and a strong work ethic and do the right things and make what they see as sound decisions but just can’t seem to get any closer to enjoying the quality of life they want. They can’t figure out why the success they desire isn’t happening—especially when they feel they’re doing everything right.

If you’re experiencing that kind of confusion and frustration, I can certainly empathize. It was a challenge for me to fully grasp this simple—but not-so-easy-to-understand message.

If you fully comprehend the message that follows and start taking action, you will shift your MANformation into overdrive. Even if you don’t totally get the meaning right away—as was my experience—don’t worry. It will marinate in the back of your mind and eventually make itself present, help you grow as a man and start getting you what you want.

The greater the risks you take in life, the greater the rewards you’ll possibly enjoy.

If you want a better job or career, more money, deeper relationships with a better quality of people, and if you want to become healthy and fit, you need to take the appropriate risks to make those things happen. The alpha male is a continual risk taker. He takes risks that are directly proportional to the achievement and fulfillment he wants to experience.

The alpha male is more willing to “roll the dice” and potentially lose his time, money, job or business deal or get rejected and jeopardize emotional security because he is confident that he can put himself in a position to win.

The alpha male is confident that, if he risks losing his time now, he’ll earn even more time to do the things he really wants to do in the future. If he risks losing his money now, he’ll earn 100 times more money in the future. If he risks giving up his current job, it will lead him to a more fulfilling job with more pay or even his own business. If he risks losing a business deal now, it will make that business deal three times more beneficial to him. If he risks being rejected now, it will put him in a situation that he’s always dreamed of. If he risks losing emotional security now, it will lead to total fulfillment instead of settling for what barely satisfies him. If he risks the time and effort needed to go to the gym and eat properly now, he’ll earn an amazing measure of health and fitness.

Many less dominant and beta males have little chance of getting what they really want in life because they don’t take enough risks. Or they don’t take big enough risks. Sure, they believe they’re already risking enough. In their minds, more risk would be just plain foolish.

It’s very common for people to believe the risks they take should get them where they want to go in life. Also that the risks they take are the most intelligent and rational ones and that the ones they don’t take are impractical, unnecessary and foolish. If you aren’t getting what you want in life, you may need to reconsider your approach. You may want to step out of your comfort zone and start doing things you wouldn’t normally do.

Your ability to take risks that give you the chance to get you what you really want will be critical to putting your MANformation puzzle together. Let’s face it: If you never put yourself in a position to win big, you’ll have absolutely no chance of doing so. There’s a price tag for everything in life worth having. The bigger the prize, the more it costs. The unfortunate and at the same time exciting part about taking risks is that you may pay an outrageous price to get what you really want with no guarantee you’ll ever get it.

You must risk only what you are fully prepared to lose, whether it’s time, money, a job, a business deal or emotional security. That’s why they call them risks and not “sure things.”

So you’ve taken some risks in the past and they didn’t work out as planned? So they brought even more stress into your life and sent you backward? Well, join the club! The alpha male accepts that this happens from time to time and doesn’t let short-term setbacks cripple his ability to take risks in the future. He just gets more determined to find a more effective approach.

When a risk the alpha male takes doesn’t work in his favor, he takes full responsibility for the decision he made and the actions he took. He does not blame other people for his setbacks as many less dominant and beta males tend to do.

You’ll undoubtedly be challenged with fear when you take risks—and courage is the cure for that fear. There is nothing wrong with feeling the emotion of fear. What will determine your success is how you respond to it.

The alpha male is courageous. Courage is what you’ll need to take the risks essential for success. Courage is a character quality you must constantly use and refine. The alpha male understands his risk-taking ability requires practice. The more he practices taking risks, the easier it becomes for him to take them.

As you make your MANformation journey and transform into the man you really want to be, there will be just as much discomfort and anxiety as excitement and satisfaction. The good and bad feelings should be directly proportionate—if you’re really stretching yourself and not settling for less based on your fears.

It’s up to you to control your emotions during both good and bad times. It’s up to you to choose which emotions you focus on and realize that most of them will always be present. Risk taking may seem unfair and uncomfortable at times, but the fact is that behind every awesome and fulfilling victory lies the possibility of gut-wrenching pain and devastation.

Some gang members perfectly captured the alpha male’s perspective about taking risks on an East Los Angeles wall: “It is better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb.”

Editor’s note: Six-time national-champion bodybuilder and success coach Skip La Cour is the creator of MANformation, a powerful personal-development and fitness program for men that is based on the qualities and actions of the world’s most powerful, influential and charismatic men. It is a structured series of alpha leadership strategies for transforming you into the man you really want to be. It doesn’t matter where you are in your life right now, what you have achieved so far or your age. The MANformation program will help you become a better version of you—step by step and one strategy at a time. To learn more, visit www.MANformation.com. Sign up for the free weekly e-newsletter, and you’ll get a free alpha leadership e-book.