Since my early twenties, I have been big on taking risks because I thought it opened the door to a high-reward life.
10 years later, I can tell you it was completely retarded.
The mental model I had of risk-taking was that the larger the risk, the larger the reward; the bigger the effort, the larger the chance to succeed. I thought that risk + effort = paycheck.
I thought wrong.
Over those past ten years, I systematically took the unconventional path, writing online, building businesses, working 60 to 100 hours a week while my friends got into steady Monday-Friday careers and enjoyed their lives on the weekend.
10 years later, as we compare where they ended up, and where I ended up, the conclusion is in their favor: they purchased cars, houses, got promoted, got married, and had kids. Today, they have a life.
Meanwhile, I lost all of my money and must now go back to traditional employment which, after years of entrepreneurship, is not easy to go back to.
My friends did better by making fewer efforts, while I did worse by making many more. Today most of them work 2-3 hours a day, and take a 3 – 5k€ net paycheck every month.
From October 2025 to October 2026, I worked an average of 100 hours a week for 35€k of revenue and a 10€k net loss.
It’s difficult not to feel any anger as it doesn’t come across as fair.
But reality doesn’t care about fairness; it cares about effectiveness and competence.
The mainstream idea is that it is those who work who succeed. But it’s not true. There is little to no correlation between effort and money-making. And there is no correlation between effort and success in general.
We want to believe it because it sounds fair, but it is never true. Those who earn the most do the least; those who earn the least do the most.
I am not going to lie to you: I am angry.
I’ve read all of the books, I’ve applied all of the advice, I did everything while ensuring that I had skin in the game. To no avail: I still lost everything. Building a business is risky.
I didn’t believe it.
You only ever hear about people who have taken the path that I have taken and who succeeded; you never hear about those who failed: may this article fill that gap.
Follow the conventional path. Don’t take risks, it is not worth it. Take what you can and be happy with what you have.
- Getting a job is hard; don’t quit it. Never quit your job.
- Getting a girlfriend is hard; don’t break up.
- Earning money is hard: don’t invest it into high-risk ventures. Seriously: never gamble the farm.
- Getting a life is hard; don’t start a company. Starting a company will either ruin you, or kill you. It will eat away all of your time, efforts, and finances. Everyone will want to see you fail: your friends, family, your competitors, the government…no one wants you to succeed. No one.
Risk-taking is a bad idea. It doesn’t make you move forward; it sets you aback. Most risk-taking has turned out badly for those who took the risks. If the alternative is stability, stability should always be preferred.
In the opening of Antifragile, Nassim Taleb explains that the purpose of life is survival.
His subsequent enquiry concerns how to maximize it. Risk is exactly what decreases your chances of it.
So don’t take risks. Go to university. Study something that helps you get a job. Get a job. Keep the job. Get a girlfriend. Keep the girlfriend. Get a house. Keep the house.
Conventional wisdom may be conventional, but it’s also wisdom (and for a good reason.)
Don’t bet on the high-risk high-reward option; the chances never are in your favor.
