Very few important decisions in life are single factor considerations.
Most times multiple factors need to be considered, all having differing levels of impact on the outcome.
Farming is full of these such decisions where risk and reward are constantly being assessed.
Across the board, farmers have a conservative approach to their businesses, which in many cases has been handed down to them from previous generations.
Baby boomers had parents who started their business lives with very little and they did not want to risk their hard-earned wealth.
My mum and dad were one such couple, and I and my siblings grew up in a frugal environment that has been passed on to my children.
As a parent I played it safe and in doing so, I denied my children of some potential gains in life.
I did what I believed was best at the time but hindsight has taught me I should have encouraged them to take more risks.
Each day when we get out of bed, we are encountering risk in everything we do.
Most do not identify the risk with many things they are doing because it as a daily ritual and preservation has been built in as routine.
Risk and reward go hand in hand so the higher the risk, the higher the potential reward - but also the higher the possible loss.
There is no such thing as low risk high reward - if this does happen it is only on a very rare occasion.
If I was to have my time over again parenting my own young children, I would endeavour to challenge them with higher risk situations than I did previously.
Bird nesting was a common practice for me as a young boy and deciding if a branch could hold my weight in pursuit of that sought after egg was about as big a risk I would take.
Learning from one type of risk I believe can benefit other areas of your life.
Throughout my life I have suffered from acrophobia - a fear of heights. It was not until a group of young clients gave me a skydiving jump from 14,000 feet as a 50th birthday present that I really faced this fear head on.
Having made the big jump, I was then better able to handle other fears in my life.
Setting your children up with a share portfolio, a small business enterprise or doing some small-scale mountain climbing would challenge them early in life to many risk/reward decisions.
The skills and attitude gained in doing such things would prepare them so much better for their life ahead.
Any failure encountered along the way would be forgiving and full of learning.
Failure, believe it or not is closely aligned with success, failure is such a great teacher.
For our lives to be fulfilling, we need to remind ourselves of the stimulus-response-reward cycle.
If you gain the stimulus to take a risk and respond accordingly, based on the level of success, it is important that reward is built into your psyche, because it is the reward that helps create the next stimulus.