With No Risk, There is No Reward

December 10, 2015 by Scott Todnem

Every single time I get on an airplane to travel for one of my freelance jobs, I repeat the quote, “With no risk, there is no reward,” in my mind. This has driven me to push myself to try new things in a dozen different ways in the past couple of years.

"My people” are not among those who put themselves out there in any sense of the phrase. I was blessed with two hard working parents who never let me quit and encouraged me every step of the way as I was finding my way through my adolescence and into college.

Despite all that, I grew up as . . . well . . . a wuss.

Incompletion

December 08, 2015 by Scott Todnem

A book sits next to my bed. 227 pages read, 129 more to go.

Three drafts reside on my Google Drive: a children's story about a clown dog, a ghost story with only three pages written, and a true story about me and my relationships. All started, none completed.

A to-do list jotted down in a spiral notebook with ugly, yellow pages, sits on my desk at work. Some things are crossed off, some things are not.

A 2015 list of resolutions is folded eight times in a small white, cardboard box; it’s never been taken out since the move.

If I unfold the piece of paper, one corner at a time, to reveal the list I wrote in 2015, would I be disappointed? Probably.