A few months back, I joined a networking call with a very successful entrepreneur. I came away unimpressed. This individual has amassed a wealth through real estate investing, buying up commercial assets, apartment buildings, and more. They have had a very successful thirty-year career that started with buying one-bedroom Section 8 houses. Today, they are worth millions.
After the call ended, I left with more questions than confirmations. There is no denying this individual's intelligence, and there is no denying what they've achieved, but we build a mental version up when we think of successful people — that they are larger than life, smarter than anyone on earth, and better than us.
I learned that day that there are people who have and will continue to achieve a lot more than we will because of one simple thing: risk tolerance.
Risk tolerance is the great separator that nobody likes to talk about because it removes the comfort of believing success is reserved for a smarter or more gifted group of people. No matter how you slice it, your risk tolerance will be the difference maker for you one day.
Intelligence matters, experience matters, and timing matters, but none of those things move without someone being willing to place a bet before the outcome is clear. The person on that call did not impress me because of what they said. They impressed me because of what they had been willing to do decades earlier when certainty did not exist.
Here is the uncomfortable part most people do not want to admit. There are people out there who are less thoughtful, less prepared, and frankly less intelligent than you who are winning simply because they were willing to act when you were still thinking. They were not smarter. They were not more polished. They just tolerated uncertainty longer and stopped waiting for permission to feel confident.
We love to believe that success is a meritocracy of intelligence because it gives us cover. If smarter people win, then losing feels justified. But when you realize that progress often belongs to the person willing to look foolish, make imperfect decisions, and risk being wrong in public, the excuse disappears.
Most people do not fail because they chose the wrong move. They fail because they never chose at all. Intelligence paired with risk tolerance is dangerous in the best way. Without it, intelligence becomes a safety blanket that keeps you warm while life passes you by.