Being a designer, an entrepreneur, a business owner, a creator, a writer is risky business. You risk failure at every turn.
You risk not meeting your own expectations let alone those of your customers.
Yet, without making those risks there are no rewards. And at the end of the day, the rewards seem worth the risks. At least to me.
I spent an entire afternoon auditioning two units, each with slightly different codes on them to see which sounded better. They both sounded awful. Just yesterday they sounded great. My first reaction was one of fear. "Had I misjudged them yesterday and today the truth reveals itself?"
Risk fuels fear. And fear fuels doubt.
But I knew they sounded great yesterday. They couldn't sound 180 degrees out of phase today. Something else must have been amiss.
Turns out my 35 year old loudspeaker's woofer system had given up the ghost. Two hours later, some screwdrivers, scopes and meters and we were back in business.
Yet I learned another good lesson. What we do is risky and if there's no risk, there's no boundaries to cross, no discoveries to be made.
We can't have rewards without risks.
