How to take risks without burning it all down
Risk is one of those words that feels heavy. For many professionals, it brings up images of failure, judgment, or making the “wrong” move at the wrong time. Yet growth, personal or professional, rarely happens without it.
That tension was at the heart of NextGen Center’s webinar, How to Take Risks, led by Brian Alvo. Rather than encouraging bold leaps or blind confidence, the session focused on something far more useful: how to think about risk in a grounded, practical way, and how to recover when things don’t go as planned.
As Brian put it early on, “Risk is not all or nothing, but in our mind it feels that way.” The goal of the session was to deconstruct that mindset and offer tools professionals can actually use.
Below are the key takeaways from the conversation, along with frameworks you can apply as you think about the year ahead.
Risk is often an inner game, not an outer one
One of the first ideas Brian introduced was the concept of the inner game versus the outer game. Borrowed from The Inner Game of Tennis, this idea suggests that our biggest opponent is often not the situation itself, but the voice in our head reacting to it.
“The real opponent is often in your own head,” Brian said. “And when it comes to risk, that’s especially true.”
He described two versions of ourselves at play:
The judging voice that evaluates, criticizes, and jumps to conclusions
The natural doer that can learn, adjust, and act
Judgment, Brian noted, is “the No. 1 performance killer.” When professionals think about risk in all-or-nothing terms, success versus failure, it becomes much harder to move forward.
This shows up in subtle ways. Someone may avoid sharing an idea because they fear how leadership will perceive it. Another may hold back from pitching themselves because rejection feels personal. These reactions are human, but they can quietly stall growth.
The first step is awareness. “Acknowledge that it’s there,” Brian said of these inner reactions. “It’s there for every single one of us. Then you work with it.”
Identify your protective tendencies
To make the inner game more visible, participants were asked to name their “protective tendencies” which are the mental habits that surface when risk feels close.
During the discussion, attendees shared examples such as:
Not wanting to be perceived as a failure
Fear of being wrong
Perfectionism
Worry about making the wrong decision
One participant said, “I don’t want to be perceived as a failure to the leadership team.” Brian’s response was telling: the goal is not to eliminate that fear, but to test it.
“If you put an idea out there and it doesn’t go over well, and you learn nobody held you with that level of judgment,” he said, “that’s something you can start to work with.”
Risk becomes more manageable when assumptions are examined instead of accepted as fact.
Think of risk as a skill you can practice
Another important reframing from the session: risk is not a personality trait. It is a skill.
“Good news,” Brian told the group. “You already take risks every single day.”
From driving on the highway to speaking in a meeting with unfamiliar people, risk is already part of daily life. The difference is that professional risks often carry emotional weight especially when identity, reputation, or relationships are involved.
Rather than avoiding those moments, Brian encouraged participants to treat risk as a practice. That means shifting away from impulsive decisions or total avoidance and toward measured, thoughtful action.
“It’s not about taking blind leaps,” he said. “It’s about taking calculated risks.”
Use a simple framework to assess practical risk
For risks that feel more operational, like pitching consulting services, proposing a new idea, or starting something unfamiliar, Brian shared a straightforward framework to slow down the thinking process:
What’s the upside?
What’s the downside?
What’s the recovery plan if it doesn’t work?
What’s the cost of not acting?
One key addition was probability. Instead of assuming the worst-case scenario, Brian suggested assigning rough percentages to possible outcomes.
“There’s probably some chance that when you pitch your services, somebody’s going to like what you say,” he noted. “We don’t know what that number is, but you can take an educated guess.”
Quantifying risk helps reduce emotional distortion. It also highlights something many professionals overlook: the opportunity cost of inaction. Over time, avoiding a risk can carry its own weight: missed growth, stalled momentum, and lingering frustration.
Break emotional risk into parts with the CTFAR model
For emotionally charged risks like giving difficult feedback or setting boundaries, Brian introduced the CTFAR model:
Circumstance
Thought
Feeling
Action
Result
Most situations start neutrally. It’s the thought we attach that drives emotion and behavior.
Brian shared an example many leaders recognize: needing to tell someone they’re disappointed in their performance. The circumstance itself is simple. The thought (“This is going to be hard”) creates discomfort, which leads to avoidance. Weeks pass, and the result is often more tension, not less.
“You have free will,” Brian said. “You can change your actions even if your thoughts and feelings aren’t caught up yet.”
Small adjustments like preparing ahead of time, scheduling the conversation, or naming intentions clearly can interrupt the cycle.
Make the risk smaller than your fear
A recurring theme throughout the webinar was scale. Many professionals stall because the risk in front of them feels too big.
“If you’re afraid to speak up in meetings,” Brian explained, “a smaller version of that risk is speaking up one or two more times.”
Progress does not require dramatic change. It requires movement.
Breaking risks into smaller steps allows people to build confidence through action rather than waiting for fear to disappear.
Recovery matters more than the outcome
Perhaps the most important message of the session came near the end: risk avoidance is often tied to a lack of trust in recovery.
“One of the reasons we don’t want to take risks is because we don’t trust ourselves or other people to recover well from them,” Brian said.
He shared his own recovery process after receiving critical feedback—giving himself time to feel disappointed, then reflecting, adjusting, and eventually appreciating the learning.
“We tend to overestimate the cost of failure and underestimate our ability to recover,” he said.
Recovery, like risk, improves with practice. And without taking risks, there is no chance to build that muscle.
Moving forward with intention
Risk is not about becoming someone you’re not. It’s about making different choices in moments that matter.
“If you want to get to where you want to go,” Brian said, “it’s going to take risk.”
The invitation from NextGen Center is simple: slow down your thinking, challenge your assumptions, take smaller steps, and trust your ability to recover. Growth lives there.
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