Our topic today begins with a little-known diplomat of the former Japanese Empire, stationed in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Born in Gifu, Chūbu, to middle-class parents, Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝) had an unconventional path in life. He was the second of five sons and one daughter, graduated from high school with top honours, but deliberately failed the entrance exam for medical school, defying his father’s wishes.
Instead, he enrolled at what is now Waseda University majoring in English. He passed the Foreign Ministry scholarship exam and was first stationed in Korea. Taking the exam again, he achieved distinction in Russian, which led to his posting in Manchuria, where he studied Russian and German. By the time he was appointed Vice Consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Sugihara was fluent in seven languages: Japanese, English, Korean, Russian, German, Mandarin, and Lithuanian, an extraordinary repertoire for any diplomat.
1940 soon rolled around and the shadow of World War II loomed large. The Soviet Union had occupied Lithuania, a nation with a significant Jewish population alongside neighbouring Poland. Fearing persecution (an ominous foreshadowing of what the German Reich would bring), thousands sought exit visas to escape.
As wartime pressures mounted, foreign consulates in Kaunas were ordered to close one by one.
Yet Sugihara remained.
For weeks, he worked 18 to 20 hours a day, handwriting visas for Jewish refugees desperate to flee. He continued until the very last possible moment — as his train out of Lithuania was literally pulling away from the station.
In total, Sugihara issued thousands of visas, far exceeding his official quota and against explicit instructions from the Japanese Foreign Ministry. His actions saved countless lives, but came at a personal cost. Years later, he was dismissed from the ministry and imprisoned for his 'Lithuania Incident'.
It was not until 1991, 5 years after his death in Kanagawa that Japan’s then Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muneo Suzuki, formally apologised for Sugihara’s unfair treatment. The man had endured a life marked by dishonour, only to receive a simple “sorry” for his life’s greatest work.
Modern estimates suggest that the direct descendants of those saved by Sugihara now number over 100,000. And he was by no means the only hero in that dark chapter of human history. Banker Nicholas Winton organized the Kindertransport, forging documents that allowed hundreds of children to escape Nazi-controlled Germany. Père Marie-Benoît smuggled thousands of Jews across the French border. Physician Tina Strobos hid more than 100 Jews in her own home. Each stood fearlessly in the face of what was almost certain death.
So what does this have to do with risk taking?
We all like to think we are brave. How many times have you read an article in the news and thought, “If I were in that situation, I’d go ahead and do it,” or, “What a weak mentality.”
Truth is, the human brain is wired to be risk-averse. From a young age, as soon as we learn the ropes of society, our parents remind us to check both sides of the road before crossing. We were all told to beware of strangers and to always study for exams. Why?
This isn’t because we are raised to be goody-two-shoes, rather because we are trained to minimise and mitigate risk.
Avoiding a stranger is one less danger to worry about. Studying for exams reduces the likelihood of failure. Looking both ways before crossing the street is insurance against reckless drivers, no matter how. small. the. odds.
The science of risk-taking is just as fascinating. A Dutch study found that risk appetite peaks in middle age, then decreases rapidly as we grow older. Another Spanish study noted that risk-taking often correlates with personality traits such as sensation-seeking and impulsivity, or what modern society might dismiss as “childish.”
There has never been a consensus on risk-taking. In fact, in psychology, there never will be. Human behaviour is too complex, too fluid, and too tied to circumstance for a single answer to ever fit all.
Risk-taking is one of those fascinating traits that’s easy to admire from afar but much harder to embody in real life. Everyone’s appetite for risk is different, and — here’s the kicker: it’s rarely consistent. You might be fearless when it comes to investing in stock options, but completely avoidant when it comes to public speaking.
However, based on personal experiences, it boils down to one thing: perceived benefits from the potential adverse outcomes.
The Myth of the “Risk Taker”
People often imagine risk-taking as belonging to a single personality type: the entrepreneur who quits their job to start a business, the skydiver chasing their next adrenaline rush, or the gambler dreaming of becoming the next Tony Bloom.
But risk appetite isn’t fixed. It’s situational—shaped by experience, luck, personality, and sometimes even something as trivial as how much coffee you’ve had that morning. The real skill lies in understanding what kinds of risks you naturally gravitate toward, and which ones make you freeze. That self-awareness can transform perception, from “reckless teenager” to “calculated strategist.”
The point is not to expect everyone to take the kind of risks Sugihara did, but rather to understand why some people act the way they do, what drives them, and what makes individuals like Sugihara truly extraordinary.
Risk in Three Flavors
Think of risk in three broad flavours: The sweet, the sour and the bitter.
Financial Risks: Investments, Starting a business, Gambling.
Personal Risks: Relationships, Lifestyle changes, Chasing a dream.
Reputational Risks: Speaking your mind, putting your name on a project.
I often call financial risks “sweet.” Money lost can usually be earned back, and the potential gains from taking that risk can be sweeter still. Personal risks tend to leave a sour taste in your mouth, but they’re rarely something you can’t recover from. Reputational risks, on the other hand, are a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.
I like to think of these risks as portions of a 100% pie. While everyone is different, most people tend to have the largest appetite for financial risks, followed by personal risks, and the smallest appetite for reputational risks — roughly a 50-30-20 split.
For example, you might happily risk money in the stock market but would rather not risk your reputation by giving an unpopular opinion in a meeting.
Appetite vs. Ability
Your appetite for risk is how much uncertainty you’re willing to take.
Your ability to take risk is how much uncertainty you can afford to take.
Here’s the trap: sometimes our appetite is bigger than our ability (hello, over-leveraged investors in 2008), and sometimes our ability is bigger than our appetite (think of the financially stable person too scared to ever switch jobs).
The sweet spot is aligning both: taking risks you can handle and are willing to face. But of course, putting it in practice is easier said than done.
Risk appetite can also changes over time. A 25-year-old might see job hopping as an exciting adventure. A 45-year-old with kids might see it as a threat to stability. And yet, sometimes life events push people the other way: a near miss, a wake-up call, or even boredom can make you suddenly crave more risk.
Your appetite isn’t static—it shifts as you grow, as your responsibilities change, and as you experience both wins and losses.
The Self-Test
Here is a fun exercise I like to do. Ask yourself:
When was the last time I took a risk that scared me?
Do I regret more the risks I took or the ones I didn’t?
Am I avoiding risk because it’s dangerous, or just because it’s uncomfortable?
The answers might surprise you.
Calculated Risks
One might ask, “Hey man, I’m secretly a coward... does that mean I don’t take risks?”
No. Everyone takes risks, whether they realise it or not. Crossing the street, speaking up in a meeting, or even trying a new restaurant all involve a degree of uncertainty.
Taking risks doesn’t have to mean acting blindly. A calculated risk is one where the potential downsides are understood, the odds are weighed, and contingency plans are in place. It’s the difference between jumping off a cliff without knowing what’s below and diving into water you’ve already measured.
Calculated risks allow you to stretch your boundaries while keeping the likelihood of disaster in check. They require preparation, patience, and sometimes restraint knowing when not to act can be just as important as seizing the right moment. Being risk-averse also doesn’t mean avoiding every gamble - it just means you’re selective about which ones you take.
Not taking risks, on the other hand, is its own kind of stupidity. A shot not taken is a shot missed. You will always encounter failures and near misses in life, but that doesn’t mean you should become completely risk-averse. Avoiding every risk is just another way of ensuring you miss every opportunity.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself once eloquently stated:
Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice.
I’d argue that all risks should be calculated. Throwing all your money on black in roulette isn’t risk-taking—it’s stupidity. Quitting your job without another one lined up is reckless. Having unprotected intercourse with someone you just met is asking for trouble. Risk-taking isn’t about leaping without looking; it’s about choosing your battles wisely and stacking the odds, even slightly, in your favour.
Final Thoughts
The world doesn’t reward recklessness, but it rarely rewards total safety either. The goal isn’t to jump at every opportunity without thought: it’s to know your appetite, prepare accordingly, and take risks that align with your goals and values.
In my original story, Sugihara himself lived a life of risk—but not the kind you might imagine. He was fully aware of the consequences of his actions, yet he rationalised them through his moral compass. He knew that if he didn’t break the rules, the thousands he saved would cease to exist. Prison, to him, was almost a form of comfort—an unjust punishment for a noble cause. It was this clarity of purpose that made him a one-in-a-million saint.
I’m not asking you to be Sugihara. I’m not even asking you to be the second coming of Christ.
My message is this:
Risk wisely, and risk often enough that your life isn’t just a long list of things you almost did.
Author's Note
Thank you all for your support on my last article, and apologies for my long absence. Life’s been hectic, and I’ve also been searching for that spark of writing inspiration.
I’ve always promised myself that everything I put out will be high quality and worth your time to read. If it isn’t, I’d rather not post at all. If you like what you see, drop a like and follow, much appreciated.
At my brother's old job, in an industrial setting, everyone was very safety conscious. They had specific policies in place to prevent accidents, and expected workers to abide by them. They also frequently solicited and listened to what workers said about the practicality of those regulations, working hard to ensure that they were practical and easy to remember and follow. They expected careful reports on the nature of each accident and put real work into trying to prevent future repetitions.
At his new job, workers view that stuff as red tape put out by moralizing busybody managers, they know that sometimes accidents happen, it's a fact of life, and since safety directives are just busywork drafted by out of touch managers who don't really care if you follow the regs or not, the best thing is to just ignore them. After all, accidents are a fact of life, some people get into worse accidents than others, that's just how the world works.
One of these workplaces has a much higher accident rate, with worse accidents. Can you guess which one?
While recruiters have been using AI for around the past decade, the technology has been greatly refined in recent years. And demand for it has risen strongly since the pandemic, thanks to its convenience and fast results at a time when staff may be off due to Covid-19. The questions posed by AI recruitment software, and your answers to them, are designed to evaluate several aspects of a jobseeker's personality and intelligence, such as your risk tolerance and how quickly you respond to situations.
Andrea Murad, ‘The computers rejecting your job application’, BBC
In business there’s a concept known as “Risk Tolerance.” Risk tolerance is exactly what it sounds like, how much risk your willing to take on in a given investment. For businesses it usually refers to either monetary investment, new product lines, etc.
Everything in life has some risk involved. If you are trying to find an audience for your writing at some point you will have to take a chance. There is a trade off between the amount of risk you take and the potential reward that comes from it. In many cases the higher the risk the higher the possible reward, but since there are no sure things in life you have to make sure the risks that you take are in line with what you can afford to lose.
For someone who is a born writer, writing doesn’t sound like a risky endeavor. It seems about as risky as breathing. However, becoming a known writer, creating a business out of writing, does have it’s risks.
On the low end of the scale low risk/low reward, you can always write for yourself. It is completely possible for a writer to never spend more than a few dollars here and there on pens and paper there’s no monetary risk involved. There’s also no readership for this kind of writing.
Another low scale risk/reward writing option is blogging. An example I’m positive your familiar with if your reading this is Tumblr itself. This site is a low risk/low reward writing platform. Some people do make a few dollars here and there using various means, advertising their books, taking commissions, etc. but for most of us, there is no monetary investment or risk of loss in this kind of site.
Building on risk you can have your own website. This is where you start getting into cost/benefit. A domain name/ web hosting will cost you some. For my website; www.TamaraHaddock.com I pay about $250 a year. $12 to keep the domain name active and 19.99 for the web hosting. It’s important to note at this point I’ve had the site about 2 years, and it gets almost no traffic, however I keep it up and running, I can afford the loss of $21 a month to own my domain name. Some people might choose not to take risk of losing that much.
When you start trying to market your work to a wider audience there is always a risk involved.
Advertisements can run you as much, or as little as your willing to spend on them, but there is no guarantee that the person who sees your ad will have any interest in buying your book or your writing.
If you attempt to go the traditional publishing route of a book there is always the risk of rejection. Sometimes emotional risks or “dread” risks are harder to overcome than monetary risks. It’s not hard to throw five or ten dollars at putting up an ad for something yourself published, but when you put something out in the hands of someone capable of tearing it apart, it’s a little harder to take that chance. It feels like you personally are at the risk of rejection rather than your work.
Choosing who to work with on your writing is also a risk/reward endeavor. If you contact an editor/book reviewer/ agent/publisher you are taking the risk on that persons experience, skill, and connections. Sometimes the risk pays off and you get a good working relationship, other times unscrupulous people try to profit off of the dreams and ambitions of others. I’ll give you an example of this one that drives me crazy. Online Writing Courses. There are writing courses out there that claim they make six figures a year and promise that they can help you do the same. Consider this though, if you are hearing about a writer not through the popularity of their writing, but through the class they are selling via ads for a couple hundred bucks a piece are they actually making their income by writing? Or are they making it off their customers desire to make money off writing?
How much are you willing to risk getting where you want to go?
What risks are you willing to take, either personally to your ego, or monetarily to your bank account? Look at the potential reward that each risk offers, what are the odds that the reward will be worth more to you than what you risk losing? What if you lose everything you invest in the endeavor? Would it have been worth it? If the answer is no, then the risk is too high.
Remember never take a risk if you’re not comfortable losing whatever you’ve put into it. While some people have higher risk tolerance than others, at the end of the day you need to know what risks are worth taking, what chances will move you closer to your goals and what chances if they fall short are going to discourage and de-motivate you from following your dreams.
I’m starting to appreciate more just how scary it is to be a doctor.
You have a patient come in with a stomach ache, nausea, feels tired and sort of generally miserable, no other obvious characteristic symptoms.
Out of 100 patients like this, 90* will be a minor gastroenteritis or whatever, maybe you ate something bad, here’s some nausea medication, go home and eat bland foods and get enough fluid and sleep it off.
And 7 will be appendicitis or gallstones or pancreatitis and need to be admitted to the hospital, 1 will be a heart attack with atypical symptoms, 1 will be the first sign of cancer, and 1 will be some weirdo disorder with a name like “Coleman’s 4268py deletion snydrome, Type II”** that you never heard of.
If I were a doctor, this would make me terrified to ever tell a patient “maybe you ate something bad, go home and sleep it off.” Even though that’s usually the right answer, and even though it’s a waste of time and money to do an EKG and CT and 4268py test on everyone with a tummy ache--it’s got to be anxiety-provoking to not be certain that you aren’t missing something. And at some point you will send someone home only to get a call the next day that they collapsed and now they’re in the ICU (or the morgue). And it’s got to be really hard to go back to work after that and say “go home and sleep it off” to your next patient, even though that’s still usually the right answer.
I’m understanding more these days how tough it is to live with that kind of risk and responsibility.
How Risk Tolerance Should Shape Retirement Investment Decisions?
Not everyone should invest the same way, even at the same age. How you'd actually react to a market drop matters more than some generic formula suggests. A retirement advisor in Fort Worth, TX, can help match your investment mix to what you can genuinely handle, not just what looks good on paper.
A clear explanation of risk appetite and risk tolerance — the concepts that define how much risk a company is willing to take and how they guide decisions.
