My husband loves to tell the story about something I said when we first met.

“I’ve created my reality by thinking a certain way and if you challenge it, everything could fall apart. I have to believe what I’m doing is right and stay focused on where I’m going, not on what could go wrong.”

He thought it was dangerous to run a business like that. If I wasn’t willing to look at the risks, I was missing part of the picture. 

But I didn’t see it that way.

I spent years learning how to focus my mind on what I wanted to create. I was proud of being a conscious creator. 

And judging by the growth of my company, it was working.

If my thoughts create my reality, why would I spend time thinking about what I don’t want?

He thought looking at risks meant seeing reality. 

I thought looking at risks meant creating a reality I didn’t want.

The Questions Changed

The way I focused had served me well. It kept me off the news and from analyzing the competition or obsessing over whose business was growing faster.

But I’d taken it too far.

I’d been so careful not to give my attention to what could go wrong that when the economy changed, I wasn’t ready.

In my analytics business, I went through two big economic downturns, and in each of them I was unprepared. 

I thought looking at risks would make them real. But the risks were already real. 

Not looking didn’t make them disappear. It just cost me time, money, and options.

In trying not to attract what I feared, I actually made myself more vulnerable to it.

The second time it happened, it was hard to keep from spiraling, but a friend asked me a simple question: “How do you feel right now?”

Afraid. Anxious. Like I want to hide.

Once I could name the feelings, I could see how they were draining me and pulling my attention to the past: 

How did this happen?
What did I miss?
Why didn’t I see it coming?

Then she asked me different questions: 

What are the facts?
Where’s the opportunity?
How can you make your business stronger?

Those questions felt completely different in my body. My mind opened up again and started working for me. I could see options. 

I felt focused and motivated to take the next steps.

One of those difficult periods exposed a weakness in our cash position that I could fix. It led me to change our business model so clients paid monthly, up front. 

Looking Doesn’t Create It

I’ve met a lot of people who think if you focus on something you draw it to you. They decide not to think about things that could negatively affect their business. I used to do that too.

Whatever we focus on does get bigger in our minds.

But there’s a difference between focusing on a risk and using awareness of a risk to find a solution.

Refusing to look leaves you less prepared because you lose the chance to think while you’re calm and still have time.

Client concentration, declining margins, changes in the market, or a team that depends too much on one person are risks whether I look at them or not.

Looking at those things doesn’t create them. It gives you the chance to make your business stronger. 

And making a contingency plan doesn’t mean I expect that risk to happen. It means I’ve decided ahead of time how I can respond if it does.

Who’s Looking?

What matters to me now is the state I’m in when I look.

I know what it feels like when fear is doing the looking. My mind starts searching for what went wrong, who’s responsible, and how bad things could get.

The Observer is the part of me that can step back from the fear and see what my mind is doing.

From that perspective, I ask different questions:

What are the facts?
What am I making them mean?
What can I do with this information?

And I’ve learned not to force myself into “How can I solve this?” while I’m still frantic.

If I’m afraid, I acknowledge that first. I let the initial fear pass instead of pretending it isn’t there or acting from it.

I can tell when my thinking opens back up by the way I feel. I become curious and motivated again. 

Looking at risks from a place of fear amplifies that fear.

Looking at risks as the Observer turns them into information I can use.

The other side of risk is opportunity.

These days, conscious creation means looking at all of it. Risks. Opportunities. Numbers. It’s all neutral until I decide what it means.