And that varies greatly from person to person. But as I discuss in my book The Start-up of You, what constitutes an intelligent risk - where the upside significantly outweighs the downside - is highly dependent upon how much tolerance for risk you have. That's why learning to effectively evaluate risk is a key career skill. That unknown start-up you join could crash and burn before you've even had a chance to pay off a semester's worth of student loans. Of course, there's always a downside to risk. If you join an unknown start-up right out of college and that start-up becomes Google, the opportunities that follow for the rest of your career will likely be significantly better than if you'd started out at a less consequential company. The benefits you reap from your new place in the world compound over time. Slow incremental progress is good. But massive progress all at once is even better, because it doesn't just propel you forward in that instant. It's not an environment conducive to risk-taking.Īnd yet risk is how you find breakout opportunities that lead to life-changing gains - in your career and life in general. Rapid technological innovation has altered global business patterns and relationships, and left individual workers, companies, and even entire industries wondering what the future holds for them. Devastating wildfires, floods, and hurricanes leave no part of the country untouched.

Bitter political partisanship continues to divide America.

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