Take a Risk

My son is passionate about magic. He has been studying the art of magic for over a year now. During this time, he has been practicing his craft out on Carol and myself. He is really good at this. Some of the card tricks he performs will make your head spin. He does this one trick that just absolutely freaks me out. He takes this deck of cards and messes them all up and lays them out on a table. He'll ask you to think of a particular card, then, he'll ask you to point the card out in the messed up pile. He'll pick the card up and set it aside. He then asks you think of another particular card and then pick it out and so on. He goes into this long winded dissertation about the power of the mind blah blah blah. Then, he turns over the two cards that you picked out of this messed up pile. I'm telling you that this trick just messes me up.

For the past several weeks, Ryan has talked about taking his magic out to the streets to perform. Every night, Ryan would talk about it and talk about it. When Carol and I would encourage him to go out and do this he would always find some reason why he can't. A couple of weeks ago, I just had enough of his talking about it. He and I sat down to discuss why he had not gone out into the public to try out his craft. Quickly, Ryan was able to give reason after reason why he couldn't. Finally, I told him...."You've given me ten reasons why you CAN'T take your magic out to the streets. Now, give me one reason why you CAN". I basically went on to tell him that sometimes you just got to take risk even though you think you're not ready. "What's the worse that could happen to you", I said. Nothing really came out of this discussion. I just basically thought this was one of those discussions where I was lecturing and Ryan was going through the teenager motions. Well, much to my surprise I must have struck a chord with him. The following week Ryan came home all excited. He and a couple of his buddies went out to a local park to try out their magic. To add icing to the cake, they made a video of this excursion. Ryan showed me this video and I about screamed out loud full of joy. This was one of those proud parent moments. He took a risk and made his dream a reality.

Ryan and his buddies performed a couple of shows today with more tomorrow. Ryan is now starting to believe what Carol and I have been telling him for the pass several weeks. He's really good. Through him taking a risk and getting validation from strangers is all he needed to fuel his passion.

I have been involved in many professional situations where for whatever reasons things like logic and fear got in the way.

Defy logic and fear and just do it. Blur the boundaries and step outside the comfort zone. What's the worse that could happen?

Cam

PS: Today, my son came into work to talk to Doug about he and his buddies performing at the FORUM Solutions talent show that we're going to have our company's symposium in October. That took guts!