alexis in the city

i [heart] risk

ok, that statement isn’t ENTIRELY true. there are certain types of risk that make me super-un-easy. and i’m not saying i jump in with both feel without doing the research. but i’ve come to realize i’m far more OK with risk than most people. a lot of this has to do with ryan, who also loves risk - he tends to feel that if you’re not risking something, you’re playing it too safe. and of course, there’s the old cliche, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

a lot of it has to do with my friends - many of whom are entrepreneurs - their examples, support, and encouragement. then there’s the factor of where we live. San Francisco and Silicon Valley are areas built on risk. you can’t sit in a coffee shop without hearing several conversations about start-ups, funding, elevator pitches, etc. We live in the “entrepreneurship bubble” and i have to remember that this area is HIGHLY concentrated with unlikely stories of people who have risked it all to hit superstardom, or at least risked a lot to succeed. of course some have lost it all - but if nothing else they risked it for something they believed in.

and … a lot of my risk-loving - especially the components that existed prior to ryan and San Francisco - comes from my military upbringing. it contributes to my feeling that “if you’re not moving on, you’re not challenging yourself.” growing up, “moving on” usually meant literally MOVING, but as i’ve grown up it’s coming to mean other things.

Another reason I’m a fan of risk is that big dreams usually come with some degree of risk. and i was brought up to believe that i can - and SHOULD! - actually achieve my dreams. it’s taken me a while to mold these dreams but as i have, this seeming cliche has become more important to me.

we bought our first investment property at 21 (and the two to follow) with the dream that these will help us on our road to financial independence. i.e. not HAVING to work if we don’t want to.

we moved to the city - to fulfill our dream of living somewhere awesome  - with no jobs, no apartment and no furniture.

when i didn’t want to be a slave to an employer any more, i quit my job to work for myself.

i founded an eco-friendly pet product company to get a start on my dream of working with animals and doing everything i can to make their life - and our planet’s life - better.

there are many more in this list, but these show varying degrees of risk. and when i look at some of them “on paper” they look downright stupid. and i’ll admit we haven’t always made the best-advised decisions, but i think as we’ve matured we’ve gotten better at taking calculated risks as opposed to blind risks.

for me, i think it comes down to, “what’s it going to take to make my dreams a reality?” or, “what do i need to do to change the world in a way only i can.” I’m not talking about risking it all for delusions of grandeur, but we each have a passion, purpose and dream that is uniquely ours. and finding the road to fulfilling that purpose will, likely, not be risk-free.

my 18 year old self

as most of you know, Ryan and I started “dating” when we were 18. I put “dating” in quotes, well, b/c we were 18 - and shortly after our first date, Ryan headed off to the Navy, and I headed off to college. What followed until we got married was anything but dating, and more like obsessive email and letter writing, interspersed with a few random visits here and there. beside the fact that we were 18, this was not a great way to start a relationship - and definitely not easy! - i could write volumes on that topic, but  i digress.

this past weekend, ryan and i celebrated the 7th “anti-versary” of our first date. anyone who knows us knows we’re a little … well, “unconventional” is a nice way to put it. some people would probably say we have a weird relationship and that’s pretty accurate too. this is especially true when it comes to the “traditional” pillars of a relationship. we HATE valentine’s day and we don’t really celebrate our anniversary, opting instead to observe our “anti-versary.”

it’s a lot less complicated than it sounds: our first date was on a Friday the 13th. so each year when Friday the 13th rolls around, we celebrate in some way, some more glam than others. This year - since we’re trying to move, and in SF you have to have like 10 grand in the bank to do that - we went to a neighborhood bar, then watched the (really crappy) movie (”someone like you”) that we went to on our first date.

We also talked about our 18-year-old selves.  all-in-all, i think my 18-year-old self would be proud of me. I always hear about these people who, when they were young,  had these grandiose dreams and then life happened and they didn’t get to do what they wanted to. i’m really fortunate to not have had this problem yet! Sure, i think if i’d told my 18-year-old self EXACTLY what I was doing - namely that I was self-employed and starting another company! - i probably would have been a bit surprised. entrepreneurship kind of snuck up on me, it wasn’t necessarily something i set out to do years ago! but i think overall my former self would be happy with the decisions I’ve made so far.

you never know how life is going to turn out, but i feel like a lot of people sell out their younger, more ambitious selves for the status quo. i don’t think i’ve done this so far and - while i AM still young - i feel like the decisions i’m making now will help ensure that my future is anything but status quo. i think 18-year-old me would be satisfied with that :-).