Why bother taking risk?

Reflecting on my career, I find myself coming back to the same word. Risk.

I understand I’m fortunate to be where I am today, and I know many have overcome much more to get where they are. But in telling this story, I hope to give someone the courage to take a risk. Even if it means just taking that call, or asking about an open role.

So, let’s start from the beginning. I always will try to take a meeting with a recruiter if for nothing else, to help build my network and potentially help them locate a viable candidate for a role from my network of friends and colleagues that I have developed over my 25 years in the industry.

About two and a half years ago, I got a message from a recruiter at Oracle that ended with a different result than I expected. Keep in mind, I was in a great job at an incredible company. I was happy, I enjoyed my work, loved my team and had a great boss who gave me the space to just get the job done. I had worked at the company for 7 years (10 including my time with the company they acquired). I could have probably finished my career there if I had wanted.

When I spoke to the recruiter at Oracle, he couldn’t give me much detail on the role at first, he was just trying to identify early candidates. He was one of those easy people to talk to and seemed really interested in me as a potential candidate for this future role at Oracle. He told me that he would get back to me when their plans solidified. More than a month went by until I heard from him again, but during that time the seed he planted grew. It was a seed of possibility that could potentially sprout significant change for my career. I became more open to it as time passed.

I ended up going through their process and each step went better than the one before it. Before I knew it, they had offered me the job.

I now had a decision to make. Do a take the risk? Do I leave a comfortable job where I know what to expect each day when I go to work? Can I successfully manage a transition into a new company where I don’t know anyone? Will moving to a new segment of the industry be too difficult?

Fast forward to now, my two-year anniversary at Oracle, I can once again say, I have a great job at an incredible company. I am happy, I enjoy my work, love my team and have a great boss who gives me the space to get the job done. I could probably finish out my career here if I want to.

I have been fortunate that this is a success story. I know that not all risks have the same outcome. But I also know that the world has changed in the past year and a half. Many of us have developed different perspectives and priorities than we had in 2019.  The reason I want to share my story is that I hope it sparks that little bit of openness to risk. Allow yourself to think about the alternative. Fear, self-doubt, being too comfortable and aversion to risk in general hold us all back. Occasionally a little risk can do wonders. If you can push past that mindset and let your true capabilities shine, possibilities become reality.

Take risk and reap the rewards! And if it doesn’t work out, keep trying. Life is too short to settle for comfortable.