Men and Risk

Posted under Christianity, Entrepreneurship, Family

YOUR JUSTICE FLOWS LIKE THE OCEAN’S TIDES

Here’s an unusual idea I want your comments on.

Men’s qualifications as suitors and husbands are linked to the amount of risk they’re willing to take in their careers.

I’ll explain that opinion in a bit, but to do that, I need to give you my two cents about the working world.

Trapped By Your Job?

Imagine if you could take the salary you’re earning right now and double it. You’d have to work harder, but you wouldn’t need a boss telling you what to do all the time. There would be no glass ceiling. You could give yourself a promotion whenever you wanted. And if you planned ahead, you might even sell your job to someone else for a significant amount of money.

What kind of job is this? It’s one you create for yourself. It’s your own business.

It’s popular these days to categorize people as either capitalists or exploited workers. And yes, there are many business owners who treat their employees unfairly. But in America, no one forces these employees to stay. They can leave whenever they want for other jobs. They can even start their own businesses and compete with their former employers. Because we have so much freedom, I don’t like describing these people as exploited.

You don’t need to fill out a lot of paperwork to start a business in America. All you have to do is start selling your services to others, keep accurate records, and file some forms with the IRS at tax time.

People Trap Themselves

Why don’t more people do this? I think it’s the same thing that keeps men from courting women and then leading lovingly during marriage. They’re afraid of one thing. What is it?

Your company makes a lot more money than you do for your day’s work. They couldn’t afford to hire you otherwise. You can sit and complain about it all you want, but the next morning, you get up and go back. There’s one thing you want to avoid. What is it?

Risk.

I don’t think it’s really fair to say that companies exploit workers. Workers subject themselves willingly because they’re allowing the companies to shield them from risk. If companies go bankrupt, the employees may lose their jobs, but no lawyers will come after them for their houses and cars. They buy safety by allowing their employers to have the most lucrative and risky business opportunities.

Someone who’s a good small business owner will have learned how to manage risk. One good way to do this is to do a lot of research and then practice making reasonable decisions with the limited amount of information available.

EDIT: Many employees also have good risk-reward opportunities and can grow without leaving their jobs. It takes courage to climb the corporate ladder. Others can start side businesses without leaving their jobs. Professionals like doctors, lawyers, accountants, and IT experts have an advantage here because they can earn high salaries while they make plans to start their own practices (read: their own businesses).

An Example

Think back the the four-unit apartment building I wrote about yesterday. It should be clear from the post that I did quite a bit of research before buying the building. Most of it you can’t see, like running spreadsheets and looking up property data online. And I wouldn’t have been able to do most of that research without being mentally prepared beforehand.

How prepared? Well, I’m about halfway through this stack of books:

And that doesn’t count the dozen or so books that I’ve read and given away. It also doesn’t count the hundreds of hours I’ve spent doing research on the Web.

That’s a couple of semesters worth of material, yet I have no formal education in business or economics. Doing it this way is a lot less work and a lot more fun than going back to school would be, since I get to make my own decisions about what and when to study. Grades and final exams don’t have much meaning in this context.

The self-motivation and initiative come because I have to love knowledge in order to take big steps in life. I love to picture myself supporting my family and having a lot of free time for ministry in the future. I hate the idea of being stuck at the same stage of life forever, not only because I’d be single, but because I want to serve God as effectively as possible. Big dreams, big rewards, and careful research make the stress of taking risks bearable. Well, usually, anwyay.

(EDIT: You can do this too. Start at Gary North’s Web site. Sign up for his e-mail lists and read the publicly accessible free articles. The subscription, at $10/month, gets you full access to the site with hundreds more articles and a discussion forum where you can interact with Dr. North and other Christian businesspeople. I wouldn’t have moved to Oklahoma without first Paul Graham’s and then Dr. North’s influence. They’ll probably never understand how thankful I am.)

People Are Scared

Diligent study and risk-taking go hand in hand. Many people are scared to make big decisions because they don’t know how to evaluate and manage the risks involved. They go through life making one small change after another but never take steps necessary to go for what they really want.

Now jump a decade into the future. If you’ve had success in your decision-making, others will say what a good economic forecaster you were. They’ll say that they should have done the same thing earlier in life, but they never had the opportunity.

At the time, they were unwilling to take the risks. You were. So today, you reap the profits. Most people don’t have to be “exploited workers”. They choose that existence.

Risk and Family Leadership

What does all this have to do with courtship and marriage?

My theory is that these business-related character traits also make men good family leaders. A man has to demonstrate preparedness, foresight, and a willingness to take risks in order to find and court a woman. He has to see all kinds of problems in advance and try to solve them in order to guard his family from risk, since it’s his job to love and protect them.

A leader who always tries to deal with life’s issues “as they come up” will procrastinate and allow problems to build up, not just for himself, but for those he leads. A man who’s used to passing risk on to someone else is going to be uncomfortable shielding his family and allowing the bullets to hit him when things get tough. He won’t be used to managing the stress and fear that uncertainty brings, and this will affect his relationships with other people.

What is courage, after all? Is it the absence of fear? Or the ability to manage the fear and still be able to lead others?

They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here until I have prayed.” And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:32-38 NASB)

God, please forgive me for living a life of uncontrolled fear. Please help me to trust You so I can be Your instrument of blessing to others.

Improve This

What I’ve written is just a theory based on observations I’ve had from my business experiences. Please critique it and make it better.

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