Love this quote

In the heat of battle it ceases to be an idea for which we fight or a flag. Rather we fight for the man on our left and we fight for the man on our right and when armies have scattered and when the empires fall away all that remains is the memory of those precious moments we spent side by side.

This is true for anything. Sometimes what we fight for is not important as much as living those moments. I have been involved in a few projects when things got really hairy and we had to spend long nights trying to solve problems.

Today what I remember about those projects is how we all pulled it through working for the team and giving our 200%. Sometimes the end goal is not important. What I treasure are the mistakes we made and how we resolved them. You do learn from that, and move on. But there is no guarantee that you will not make the same mistakes again.

Fighting for something is like a drug. We love fire fighting, we love the challenges it brings. There is no other ability that I can think of that gives you more rewards than the ability to take calculated risks. Some of the happiest people I have met are risk takers. They love taking risks and they grow like nothing. Does the name Virgin ring a bell? Richard Branson?

Unfortunately I am not a risk taker such as that. But most of the risks I have taken have paid off. Some were stupid risks, so they also paid off but you end up paying a price. I take my risks on Need For Speed on a Lamborghini Murceilago. Simply because you can always try again :-). Life is also like a computer game. Only thing is that it has a limited number of safety nets.

But I am working on it :-). Want to take a few more risks :-) Maybe try out the Evo on Need for Speed.

But how does one take risks?

e.g. Your boss comes up with an idea that you have no skills to perform. This is definitely a risk that is worth taking. You will need to invest time. But a few reality checks first.

Most good ideas sound dumb at the outset. Some really ARE dumb. But some SEEM dumb because its not in our current paradigm. So this is where you take a risk.

- The investment is your effort
- The return
- is that you will learn something new
- you will build your brand with your boss as a guy open to new ideas
- the idea might turn out to be a really good idea

Downside
- The idea may not fly. But you have learnt something new.

Some Advice
- Make sure you identify what you will learn in the process. This is important since you will know at the most even if the idea doesn't work out, you will learn something. This could be the only thing that motivates you in the end.

That's about it for now. TAKE RISKS. LIVE LIFE and that will make you happy.