What a great analogy, and a funny anecdote. Did you guys have to draw straws to see who had to "take one for the team"? I remember when we first moved into our house, our neighborhood had a small pack of stray dogs. I discovered this early one morning when I was taking out the garbage. Four pairs of eyes were trained on me, as I interrupted their feast in my garbage can. At first, I thought they were raccoons, until the growling started. I turned the garden hose on them, and that seemed to do the trick. But I was wary of them every time that I took out the garbage.
Steve
· 4 months ago
@Enrique: Oddly enough, most of the time I was working with female colleagues so there wasn't much straw-drawing - I went. After a while, we all went, because we did realize that the perceived risk was nowhere near the real risk. Stray dogs are scary things, that's for sure.
Curmudgeon
· 4 months ago
Great post, Steve. Dogs don't frighten me; I delivered newspapers in my youth. But there is a lot more fear out there than is necessary.
bubelah
· 4 months ago
I don't trust dogs. Or any animal for that matter. And no matter how many times you tell me that your dog is nice and friendly and never attacks or bites anyone. It only takes one time. I got attacked by a great dane when I walked into my friend's house totally unaware of its existence. And it attacked me out of the blue. My friend and her family tried to pry the animal away. Afterwards, they swore that it never attacked anybody before and that it is the friendliest doggy in the world and they don't know what happened to it this time.
Moral of the story: don't confuse fear and mistrust. (ok, maybe not very relevant here, but beware!)
TheWealthSquad
· 4 months ago
Fear of the unknown keeps us from achieving greatness. We won't start a business because we don't know how to, we won't approach a beautiful woman because we fear how it will go, we don't reach for greatness because we fear what might happen.
When we ask the question - What would you do if you were guaranteed success? We get great answers. The question is why don't we?
The unknown is not without risk as seen by the young lady that died from the dogs, but facing our fears and striding forward is the only way to accomplish what we know we are capable of.
Great post!! Don't let the dogs bite you!!
Chad @ Sentient Money
· 4 months ago
To me, your story all comes down to judging risk. Humans are notoriously bad at judging risk appropriately. In turn, this makes most of us terrible investors, but it makes a few spectacular investors.
For example, let's go a few steps above dogs and take a look at the grizzly. It could house a couple of humans no problem for a snack. However, it rarely does. Whenever an attack occurs 80% of the time the human did something dumb like feed it (dumb ass). Thus, the risk isn't as high as it appears to be.
On a side note, sticking with the dog theme, there are no known fatalities from a wolf attack in North America. If you have ever been around a wolf, you know they are the scariest dogs on the planet. Yet, no fatalities. This is just one of those stats I find fascinating, but rarely get to use.
Steve
· 4 months ago
@Chad: You're right - humans (and yr. humble author in particular) are terrible at judging risk. The ability to judge and (in some cases) ignore risk is part of what separates the adequate from the great, I think.
Fascinating side note about the wolves, by the way. That's exactly the point - we should be far more terrified of falling in bathtubs, skin cancer or car wrecks than we should be of dog attacks, terrorist attacks or plane crashes, but we aren't.
chadsentientmoney
· 4 months ago
"That's exactly the point - we should be far more terrified of falling in bathtubs, skin cancer or car wrecks than we should be of dog attacks, terrorist attacks or plane crashes, but we aren't."
I couldn't agree more. The majority of humanity is not a rational animal, but an emotional one. Thus, everyone is trying to force themselves into believing we are in recovery mode right now, even though the numbers say we are really just in a normal recession after the Great Recession.
All Comments
I got attacked by a great dane when I walked into my friend's house totally unaware of its existence. And it attacked me out of the blue. My friend and her family tried to pry the animal away. Afterwards, they swore that it never attacked anybody before and that it is the friendliest doggy in the world and they don't know what happened to it this time.
Moral of the story: don't confuse fear and mistrust. (ok, maybe not very relevant here, but beware!)
When we ask the question - What would you do if you were guaranteed success? We get great answers. The question is why don't we?
The unknown is not without risk as seen by the young lady that died from the dogs, but facing our fears and striding forward is the only way to accomplish what we know we are capable of.
Great post!! Don't let the dogs bite you!!
For example, let's go a few steps above dogs and take a look at the grizzly. It could house a couple of humans no problem for a snack. However, it rarely does. Whenever an attack occurs 80% of the time the human did something dumb like feed it (dumb ass). Thus, the risk isn't as high as it appears to be.
On a side note, sticking with the dog theme, there are no known fatalities from a wolf attack in North America. If you have ever been around a wolf, you know they are the scariest dogs on the planet. Yet, no fatalities. This is just one of those stats I find fascinating, but rarely get to use.
Fascinating side note about the wolves, by the way. That's exactly the point - we should be far more terrified of falling in bathtubs, skin cancer or car wrecks than we should be of dog attacks, terrorist attacks or plane crashes, but we aren't.
I couldn't agree more. The majority of humanity is not a rational animal, but an emotional one. Thus, everyone is trying to force themselves into believing we are in recovery mode right now, even though the numbers say we are really just in a normal recession after the Great Recession.