Years ago, as my wife and I were driving through the Southern California desert on a cross-country trip, we saw a sign that gave us chills despite the 100-plus temperatures.

“Do not leave this road unless you know exactly where you are going,” it read.

You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out what the sign meant. All you had to do was look at the landscape. Glowing red rock, parched sand and no sign of water. If you got lost out here, you wouldn’t be coming back.

That advice was perfect for that time and place, but not so much for your life right now. In fact, just the opposite is true. If you don’t leave the path now and then, you are merely following others. If you don’t risk, you can’t discover. If you don’t fail, you can’t learn.

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary,” says speaker Jim Rohn.

You can see risk on display in the new baseball season. Every time a batter swings at a pitch, he risks missing the ball. But if he never swings at all, he will never hit it.

To win the big game, to perform at your peak, to beat the odds, you must take risks. Some people say, “What if I give everything I have but don’t win?” By refusing to take risks, they are taking the biggest risk of all — that they will never truly live.

I recently read a quote about the fear of death. It went something like this: “Don’t worry about dying. Worry that you may never start living.”

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