brian jennings

I wanted to add a few miscellaneous thoughts about risks, that didn't really fit yesterday's post:

1. People who are perpetually asking others to be part of huge risks, even though the idea just popped up in their head, wear out others, and cause people to ignore their good ideas. I've been guilty of this more than once. I've also been on the receiving end. On the receiving end, it sometimes sounds like this, "Hey, I haven't thought this through at all, but I think that you should start consuming your thoughts with my half-baked idea that might destroy in this organization all that you have been carefully working towards."

Maybe that's the extreme side, but at the very least, ideas that carry large risks take up mental capacity. I have a limited amount of this (more so than most, perhaps). 

Don't get me wrong, there are times for ideas and brainstorms. I like an environment where ideas can flow freely. We need people with random ideas. But there is a difference between, "I've been thinking something through that I'd like to bounce off of you," and "I just read an article and I think that we should..."  Timing is part of this too. Think it through and find the right time for your big ideas. You'll be better heard and more valuable to your organization.

2. Quit dwelling on the risk that you took, which didn't work out. 

Person A: "I'd like us to completely empty our food pantry in order to meet this specific need that we heard about..."  

Person B: "In the days long after King David, Assyria laid seige to Israel and many starved to death, and those who didn't resorted to eating things like donkey heads because they had not saved enough food."

Person A: Speechless.

Maybe this example is drastic, but we do this all of the time. It's good to learn from the past, but it's bad to be paralyzed by it.

Again, the goal here is to be valuable to God, your organization, your friend, your spouse... It's an issue worth thinking through.