People, including potential customers, are more motivated to avoid loss than to pursue gain. Fear is stronger than greed.

We also tend to perceive taking action as more risky than not taking action.

These are probably good ways to stay alive if you are a creature trying to avoid being eaten by a predator. They are survival instincts.

So what if you are trying to motivate yourself or someone else to do more than survive, to take action with a potential loss involved?

One way might be to work with this natural fear of loss, by creating an awareness of the potential losses involved in not taking action (not leading, not starting, not purchasing).

Here’s the reality. Inactivity is more risky than activity for humans who aim to do more than survive. And we have more to gain than we have to lose, so in the grand scheme of things potential gain is greater than potential loss. (This is only true of anyone who currently possesses less than half of all the good things on earth.)

In living and in selling, it’s worth balancing these common illusions with some reality from the other side.