Conventional wisdom suggests that people should avoid risk, or failing that, seek to control and mitigate risk. Indeed, risk management is an entire mature field of its own. All of this is for good reason. By reducing risk, we can have a more predictable and therefore stable future, and thus we can hold the gains we have already achieved while possibly even making incremental improvements.
Of course, we all know that. However, there is another valuable strategy that flies in the face of conventional wisdom: EmbraceRisk. Take chances, jump into the gap, take the unbeaten path. While many people call those who take large risks mavericks, thrill seekers, or just plain crazy, there is a worthwhile reason for taking on challenges that other people consider too difficult to try.
If you're one those who is willing to leave your SafePlace and take a gamble by following an uncharted, unstable path, you might have a huge advantage over everyone else by taking ownership of what others consider risky. If you OrderChaos by laying the path, stabilizing, and making the risky area safe enough that the risk-averse are willing to step foot into it, you AddValue. More than that, you own the risky area simply by owning all the infrastructure you built to mitigate the risk.
If you become one of those people who can routinely step into the risky gaps and make them safe for others, your value as a member of society is way higher than people afraid to leave their SafePlace. Of course, the only way to become such a person is to keep trying, learning, adapting, and building in one risky situation after another. Therefore, while in practical terms, embracing risk is just another way of saying become a master of mitigating risk, but it is not the entire picture: you must psychologically EmbraceRisk in order to over come it.
See also Wiki:EmbraceChange.
Just one quick note that comes to mind... Consider this statement in the context of a Reward / Risk ratio. In Financial Services circles, there is a fundamental assumption that "Risks are commensurate with rewards". It is also generally necessary to take into account the absolute values of both Risk and Reward and their ration to other important factors. Business folk (especially in public companies) generally talk about this in therms of the Risk or Reward being "material" (e.g. 1% of a significant Balance Sheet line item). -- HansWobbe