This week, I’ve been reflecting deeply on the nature of risk. Everywhere I turn, successful business leaders talk about the necessity of taking risks and that it’s the price of success, the mark of courage.
Though I agree, to a point. But what I’ve come to understand is that not all risks are created equal.
I took risks, bold ones. I risked it all in pursuit of growth, achievement, and fulfilment. What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was also risking something far more precious: the security of my daughter. That truth has been a hard one to face.
I had reached a stage in life that many would call “successful.” I had the dream car, the income, the lifestyle I’d envisioned years before when I first wrote my Definite Major Purpose. I’d even achieved personal goals like running the London Marathon, injured, but determined, and crossing that finish line, even two hours later than planned, was still a triumph of grit over circumstance.
But somewhere along the way, I felt a void, a space I thought achievement could fill. I wanted more, not out of greed, but out of an inner need to grow. And in chasing that growth, I found myself today on what feels like the tail end of the long snake in the game of Snakes and Ladders, the place none of us want to land.
The career I have chosen is laden with opportunity, yet it is fraught with heartbreak and depair and the bodies of those who have failed, were they piled one atop another, would cast its shadow down upon all pyramids of the earth. Yet I will not fail, as the others, for in my hands I now hold the charts which will guide me through perilous waters to shores which only yesterday seemed but a dream. Failure no longer will be my payment for struggle. Just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain neither has it made any provision for my body to suffer failure. Failure, like pain, is alien to my life.
“How am I here? Why am I here?” These questions echo in my mind. The reality of carrying a mountain of debt is suffocating at times. Yet, when I quiet the noise, my intuition, that voice I ignored when it mattered most, reminds me: You are here because you can rise above it.
My fall has been steep, but recovery is possible. It will demand courage, humility, and the willingness to step beyond my comfort zone. I once asked the universe to experience immense wealth, not realising that to do so, I would have to shed the person I once was. I had wanted to know what kind of woman I would become with abundance, would I be generous, or guarded? Would I use it to uplift others? Perhaps this experience is the only way I could ever truly know the answer.
Today, my circumstances are different. My children are grown, and my responsibilities are lighter, aside from my loyal cats who’ve been silent witnesses to it all. Soon, I’ll leave the home I’ve loved and move into a shared space. It’s a difficult step, but a necessary one. This sacrifice is temporary; it’s the price of rebuilding.
And I will rebuild. I will repay my investors, reclaim my liberty, and earn back the autonomy that defines me. This journey, as painful as it’s been, will shape me. And with the structure and discipline of the Master Key System, I’ll ensure it shapes me into a stronger, wiser, and more compassionate version of myself — one who uses these lessons not only for her own benefit, but for the benefit of others.
