Why Risk is Safer than Dependency

We don’t always recognise the way our thinking was conditioned by our schooling and upbringing, and how we are perpetuating potential financial myths or even blatant lies!

Here are some of the questionable ideas we may unconsciously have taken onboard:

Play it safe.

Get the qualification.

Find a secure job.

Stay there.

We were taught that risk is dangerous and job security is wise, yet if we look at our communities and even the world, the evidence tells a different story.

Secure jobs disappear. Industries shift. Technology replaces entire roles overnight. What once looked stable can vanish in a year. Just ask anyone who lived through the collapse of companies like Nokia, Kodak, Blackberry, Thomas Cook Travel or Blockbuster. These were industry giants, but they failed to adapt.

Even current profitable, dominant, global leaders are cutting thousands of jobs.

Examples from as recent as 2026 are:

Amazon: ~16,000 jobs cut (2026)

Meta: Up to ~15,000 roles planned for cuts (2026)

Oracle: Potential cuts of up to ~30,000 roles (reported plans)

Block: ~4,000 jobs (about 40% of workforce)

Atlassian: ~1,600 jobs (10% of workforce)

Dell Technologies: ~11,000 jobs cut in the past year (part of longer downsizing trend)

Morgan Stanley: ~2,500 jobs (2026)

CBS News: ~6% of workforce (~60+ roles)

Each of those numbers represents a person and their family who were impacted by the loss of a job.

Dependency is not safety. It is borrowed stability. The risk is not instability. The risk is believing someone else’s business system will always hold.

When your income depends entirely on someone else’s decisions, you are only as secure as their strategy, their leadership and their business cash flow. I know this first hand!

I was retrenched twice, during a two year period, where I worked for other companies, due to changes in their business strategies.

Entrepreneurial risk, on the other hand, looks unstable from the outside: Income fluctuates from month to month and results are not guaranteed. There is effort, failure and learning involved.

Yet what does risk actually build?

It builds:

A child who learns to take small, calculated risks develops internal security instead of external dependency. There is a profound difference.

A dependent mindset asks, “Who will give me an opportunity?”

An entrepreneurial mindset asks, “How can I create one?”

When your children start a small venture, sell a handmade product, offer a service to neighbours or experiments with pricing and profit, they are not merely earning money. They are building psychological strength.

That is far safer than believing the myth that a salary equals security.

This does not mean that we encourage reckless risk-taking. We do not teach children to gamble their future. We teach them to take thoughtful, measured risks in safe environments while they are still under our guidance.

You can encourage your children to build a small online venture. I highly recommend this as I have experienced in my own life, how the online marketing skills I developed were transferable and led to some magnificent, life-changing opportunities.

They can also try their hands at negotiating a better deal when buying supplies. Although haggling is not the norm in most western economies, if you attend informal markets, a child could ask for a better price if they buy multiple items or take the left-overs at the end of a day’s trading. In shops, they might ask for discount if they buy items where the packaging is damaged or if they buy in bulk. The worst that might happen is that the answer might be, "No!"

If your child has a small venture, he or she could experiment with raising prices and observing what happens.

These are controlled laboratories for courage.

The goal is not to make every child a full-time business owner. The goal is to ensure that our children are never trapped in a job. A young adult who knows how to generate income independently will never feel completely powerless, even if they choose employment for a season. They know they can build something of their own, if they choose.

Dependency feels comfortable in the short term. It does offer convenience but capability is safer in the long term.

As you raise your children, ask yourself:

Am I steering them toward security that depends on someone else, or toward competence that travels with them wherever they go?

Risk, when taught wisely, is not the enemy. It empowers our children to have more options from which to choose. It is training for freedom.