The Mayan civilisation was a very sophisticated society in South America known by its ancient temples, highly developed writing system, art, astronomical system and architecture. Famously they devised the Long Count calendar starting on 11th August 3114 BC with an end date of 21st December 2012. This became known as the doomsday calendar and a number of groups embraced it as the day that the world would end.
Now let’s imagine that one of these believers was willing to take a bet that they were right. The maths is very simple – you should bet everything you own at any odds. Either you will win or the world will end so it doesn’t matter anyway. This is the business principle of betting against the Mayans, if you are doomed anyway then you may as well risk everything in an attempt to recover.
This can be a negative thing, something like a gambler desperately chasing their losses and we’ve seen it happen in banking crashes and other business failures. Scandalous behaviour but history is made by the winners; the trader who made a huge last gamble and recovered may be seen as a genius and everyone loves the story of an entrepreneur who kept going despite huge debts and setbacks yet triumphed in the end. The lesson is that being in a position where you are on the edge of disaster brings a huge advantage in that you can try things that you would not have risked before and without fear of failure – if you do nothing you are going to lose anyway.
Now I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s a good thing to take excess risk or to have a business in trouble but getting yourself into the mindset of someone with nothing to lose can give you a huge advantage and you can do this in a number of ways:
Post apocalypse
For many of us the 2008/9 financial and property crash did not end well yet if you attend a dinner for local property developers and business owners you’ll meet many of the same faces who were crushed barely more than ten years ago and most of them are doing just fine. You see this all the time in Silicon Valley where failing is a normal part of the business process and second time entrepreneurs are considered good investment prospects. The experience gained from missing the target first time round will be a huge advantage next time.
Playing with the casino’s money
A variation on the theme takes place when an entrepreneur gets a win and a big exit. If you can bank enough money to be financially secure then you can play with your winnings with no fear of loss. This is why we so often see successful business leaders going on to have a big hit in a new unrelated field. Of course they have proved they are good (or lucky) operators but the ability to try things and iterate until they work without running out of finance is a huge advantage
The gift of youth
If you’re a young person living with your parents or renting then you have very little to lose except pride. You may not want to risk getting in to debt but you can take risks in other ways – start up a business, go to work doing something you love that isn’t on your prescribed career path or even call up business leaders you want to emulate and offer to work for minimum wage if you can learn from them. You might need to compromise on that work/life balance and they may not let you bring your emotional support hamster into the office but the potential reward is huge. The worst that can happen is you end up living back home with mummy without any savings and that wasn’t so bad when you were doing it a few years ago was it?!
Just do it anyway
You don’t have to be staring into the abyss to behave as though you are. Taking risk is often a key factor in success and even if you do fail the experience will increase the odds of success next time around. Some of us are wired this way and risk is almost addictive, use this attribute carefully and be ruthless in binning things that aren’t working regardless of what you have invested.
Simon Tolson owns Rumsey of Sandbanks, a holiday letting agency.
Contact Simon on 01202 707357 or simon@rumseyofsandbanks.co.uk
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