Embracing Necessary Discomfort After 9/11

by Carl Pritchard

Everyone, eventually, gets somewhat comfortable. Be it with a car, a chair, a project, a job, or a business strategy, human nature drives us to strive for a comfort zone. Unfortunately, that's not a healthy place to be. We all remember 9/11, but it is with a memory that has been softened for many by the passage of time. It was February of 1993 -- eight and a half years earlier -- when the World Trade Center was bombed for the first time. Eight and a half years were enough for many folks to get comfortable again. Nine and a half years before that the US Marine Barracks in Lebanon were lost. Time to heal. And time to get comfortable. With the current economic turmoil, I've had two occasions to vividly remember 9/11 and to be reminded that while many have moved past the events of that fateful day, there are still those who relive them regularly. We can take a lesson from those people, as they have indelibly etched the lessons of that day into their lives. And those lessons apply to the business of risk in both our personal and professional lives.