Latest / Built by Margin with Laurie Chen / Introducing Risk Worthy: A New Framework for Decision Making with Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA
Transcript
- 0:04Welcome to Built by Margin, the podcast where strategy meets the spreadsheet. I'm your host, Laurie Chen, fractional CFO and tax strategist, here to help you make smarter financial decisions, build a profitable business, and keep more of what you earn. Let's dive into the numbers that actually move the needle. Today, I want to talk about my book, Riskworthy. I've completed writing the introduction, and I'm super excited about it, super excited to share it with you all. I'm looking forward to doing more research and writing in the coming months. Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1789 that only death and taxes can be certain. But there is a third element that is just as absolute in this world, and that is risk. Risk as a noun is defined as possibility of loss or injury, someone or something that creates or suggests a hazard, the chance of loss of the perils to the subject matter of an insurance contract, the chance that an investment will lose value. There are over 30 different types of risk, and they can be bucketed into a few major categories, financial, business, life, environmental, and entrepreneurial. In this book, I focus on risks related to specific decisions that you're facing in life or in business. I focus on what makes an outcome worth taking the risk for. Riskworthy is a type of action that we can all aspire to as we navigate the complexities and uncertainties of our lives. If we continue to look at risk from a dominantly quantitative viewpoint and make decisions based off that theory, then we could potentially miss out on some great opportunities and outcomes, even if those outcomes come at a greater cost in the short-term time horizon. Sometimes the investments we make will cost more time and money, but it would have been worth it if it still led us to our best possible selves and our best possible futures. The famous former NBA basketball player and sports mogul Shaquille O'Neal has led or invested in numerous entrepreneurial ventures after his retirement from professional basketball in 2011. He has invested in many opportunities and shared that when he focused solely on the quantitative return on his investment, his investments often fell short of expectations.
- 2:21But when he invested or accepted an opportunity due to personal growth, or development opportunities, or as an investment in his best self, the outcomes were quite successful. We can't just continue assuming that we should only pursue investments and opportunities if the upsides are greater than the downsides, or that our probability of success is more likely than not. We need a deeper framework for evaluating risks and making hard decisions, especially decisions that deeply impact our personal lives. For me, starting my own business has been one of the best decisions of my life, despite being one of the greatest risks. In the book, I'm gonna go further into the backstory behind how I started my business and all the challenges and conflicts that I faced along the way. The investment that I chose to make in myself cost me time. Working for yourself, especially in the startup phase, often requires grueling 80 hour plus weeks, and it cost me money. I could have had a steady paycheck for months, but if I didn't start my own business at the time that I did, I would have missed out on all the opportunities and successful outcomes that followed as a result of starting the business. Decisions shouldn't be driven by fear of loss or feel of failure. Our logical mind tells us that it would be foolish to focus on anything but expected return. When you're faced with a difficult decision that involves tremendous amounts of risks in all its complexities, your decision should be evaluated through the risk-worthy framework. This is a book for those who want to inspire others to make great decisions and for those who want to make great decisions for themselves. Riskworthy will reshape the way you think about uncertainty and give you the tools and framework needed to transform your decision making. Whether you're deciding where to move, who to marry, if you should start a new venture, or make a career change. In this book, I'm going to offer a framework that is more relevant for making decisions in life and business. If we don't use the risk-worthy framework to guide our decisions, then we will certainly miss out on some great opportunities and great outcomes.
- 4:32The world has dominantly taught us to think quantitatively about risk, but shouldn't we predominantly be considering the qualitative outcomes of our risky decisions that lead to our best possible future and our best possible selves? Thanks for tuning in to Built by Margin. If you're ready to turn insights into income, subscribe and join me each week as we break down the numbers behind smart business growth. I'm