When I look back at the biggest, boldest, most uncertain decisions I’ve made – leaving India to study in the U.S., starting a couple of companies from scratch, reinventing myself more than once – I don’t remember detailed plans or guarantees. I remember something more powerful: my dad’s quiet support.
He wasn’t the kind of father who micromanaged or masterminded my life. He never said, “Be bold” or “Take risks,” but he lived those values in the way he raised me. He gave me room to figure things out. When I made choices he didn’t always understand – moving across the world, saying no to stability – he never clipped my wings. He simply stood close enough that I knew I wasn’t alone if I fell.
That support – the kind that doesn’t prevent risk but makes it survivable. – is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. And it’s something I fear we’re taking away from too many young people today.
The Rise of Derisking Culture
We live in an era of overprotection disguised as care. Parents are curating their children’s lives to minimize discomfort and maximize outcomes. Educators, counselors, and institutions are increasingly complicit – offering pathways that are optimized, sanitized, and stripped of uncertainty.
In the name of safety, we’re not preparing young people for success. We’re preparing them for paralysis.
I see this play out every day in the world of college and career counseling.
Students are discouraged from exploring non-traditional paths. Counselors craft “balanced” college lists that prioritize predictability over passion. Parents veto anything that doesn’t come with a clear ROI.
We’ve confused good planning with total control. And in doing so, we’ve removed the very thing that builds adaptability, grit, and real confidence: risk.
Risk Isn’t Reckless – It’s Required
Risk isn’t the opposite of wisdom. It’s where wisdom comes from.
You can’t develop resilience in theory. You have to live through something that didn’t go as planned. You have to improvise, recover, pivot. That’s how you grow.
But if every decision is made for you, if every outcome is engineered, if every failure is preemptively prevented – then what exactly are you learning?
We’re producing students who are well-prepared on paper but underprepared for life.
They can recite their résumés but can’t tell you who they are.
They’re terrified of the unknown because they’ve never been allowed to walk through it.
In trying to keep them safe, we’ve kept them small.
Counselors, It’s Time to Reclaim Our Role
Counseling isn’t course selection. It’s not application logistics. It’s not about removing risk – it’s about walking students through it.
The most powerful counselors I know don’t just hand students maps – they teach them how to chart their own. They say things like:
- “It’s okay to be uncertain – what do you want to try anyway?”
- “There’s no guaranteed path, but let’s think through the bold one.”
- “You’re not making a permanent decision. You’re taking your next step.”
We don’t need to shield students from ambiguity. We need to normalize it.
Because the future they’re walking into? It’s full of it.
Real Safety Isn’t Found in a Perfect Plan
What my dad taught me – without ever saying it – is that true safety doesn’t come from control. It comes from confidence.
Not confidence in a perfect outcome, but confidence that I’d survive the imperfect ones. That’s what every young person needs today: someone who believes in their capacity to try, stumble, get back up, and try again.
This is especially true in a world shaped by AI, climate change, career reinvention, and global disruption. The students who will thrive aren’t the ones who avoided risk. They’re the ones who learned how to dance with it.
The Radical Risk Toolkit
Risk tolerance doesn’t grow in theory. It grows in friction – when things don’t go as planned, and you try again anyway.
If we’re serious about preparing the next generation, we need more than encouragement. We need action.
Here’s a radical toolkit to begin that work.
For Counselors
- Assign Uncertainty. Require students to explore one college, career, or idea outside their comfort zone – with no rankings, no parental influence, no guardrails.
- Ban the word “safe.” “Safety schools” are about perceived control, not true fit. Call them what they are – lower-risk bets, not emotional guarantees.
- Gamify rejection. Celebrate “no’s” like milestones. Start a rejection wall. Reward the students who took the biggest swings.
- Replace college lists with decision trees. Build frameworks that allow for exploration, detours, and pivots – not just polished lists and outcomes.
- Host public failure. Create space for storytelling nights where students (and you) talk openly about things that didn’t work – and what came next.
For Parents
- Praise resilience, not perfection. Replace “I’m proud you got in” with “I’m proud you tried even though it scared you.”
- Let them manage real stakes. Give them control of the family grocery budget for a month. Let them overspend. Let them learn.
- Say “yes” when you want to say “no.” Let them take the weekend trip, try the summer internship you don’t understand, or apply to the school you’ve never heard of.
- Ask disruptive questions. Instead of “How will this help your future?” ask “What part of you does this feed?”
- Practice strategic inaction. Resist the urge to fix. Sit with their uncertainty. They need that space more than your solution.
For Students
- Set a boldness quota. Each week, do something that could end in embarrassment or breakthrough. Either is a win.
- Drop your dream school. Choose a wild-card option that you know nothing about – and learn to want what you didn’t already expect.
- Track discomfort. Start a journal: “What scared me today?” “Did I do it anyway?” “What happened?”
- Go where others won’t. Choose the class no one’s taking. The job no one understands. The path no one’s walking. That’s where you find your edge.
- Build a failure résumé. Start collecting your rejections, your stumbles, your almosts. Someday, it’ll be your proudest document.
The Real Risk Is Never Learning to Risk at All
Here’s the truth no one wants to admit: derisking is more about adult anxiety than student safety.
We’re afraid they’ll make the wrong choice. So we make it for them.
We’re afraid they’ll get hurt. So we don’t let them stretch.
We’re afraid of being blamed if they fall. So we never let them fly.
But what if we’re not protecting them at all? What if we’re just delaying their growth?
Let them choose the unranked college if it excites them.
Let them pursue the unconventional career if it ignites them.
Let them fail – early, gently, often – and let them feel what it’s like to rise.
If we care about them, let’s stop editing their lives.
If we believe in them, let’s stop managing their risks.
And if we truly want them to succeed, let’s teach them the one skill that matters most in the world ahead: How to take a leap – and land.
Ex Cogitatione, Progressus.
Girish
