Surviving physically in the world, for both humans and animals, requires the ability to anticipate and minimize risk. A monkey that picks up and plays with a poisonous snake will meet a swift demise. The same goes for a driver who habitually fails to stop for red lights or railroad crossing signals.
Some degree of risk-taking is a requirement for success in most endeavors. For example, achieving a loving romantic relationship will not happen unless one is willing to take the chance that a choice of spouse or partner will be a mistake. Similarly, successful entrepreneurs, whether in business or other spheres, are those who are willing to go ahead with a project where eventual success at the outset is usually not guaranteed.
So just as there is a downside to plunging ahead in the face of obvious risk, there is a downside to being totally risk-averse. Thus, the key to success is not so much embracing or avoiding risk as it is the ability to appraise risk — to be able to accurately recognize and balance the potential risks and rewards in important situations.
Which brings us to Donald Trump.
Trump is a man who has an inveterate need to initiate and close deals, and has had obvious success on some of them. But many of his initiatives have been non-starters (Trump steaks, Trump U.), while some of them have produced mediocre results (golf courses are usually not big money producers) and a few projects have been spectacular failures.
Trump’s Achilles’ heel has been an inability to rationally calculate the amount of realizable income needed to offset the ridiculously high debt loads he typically takes on, or to control his need to plunge ahead even in the face of obvious dangers and warnings.
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