{"id":12989,"date":"2018-02-14T17:54:45","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T17:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12989"},"modified":"2019-11-22T10:04:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T10:04:51","slug":"fearless-taking-the-fear-out-of-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/fearless-taking-the-fear-out-of-online\/12989\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Fearless \u2013 taking risks can reap rewards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The digital realm has dramatically changed the way we interact with each other and provided a new vehicle for us to take a step into the unknown. Being online gives us the ability to take risks that we wouldn\u2019t normally consider \u2013 from finding a new career or launching a business to striking up a new relationship or finding an outlet for our opinions.<\/p>\n<p>Kaspersky Lab undertook research and talked to case studies to uncover attitudes towards risk taking in a bid to encourage consumers and businesses that they can fear less online when they\u2019re being protected.<\/p>\n<p>We also spoke to Kathleen Saxton, psychotherapist and founder of <a href=\"http:\/\/psychedglobal.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Psyched Global<\/a>, about how we as a society should approach taking risks: \u201cThe word \u2018risk\u2019 comes with lots of negative connotations \u2013 but to move forward you have to place some bets; you have to take some chances in order to move forward. Risk should be seen as a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the Kaspersky Lab FearLess podcast series, we hear from a range of case studies who have all taken risks \u2013 in their work, home and love lives \u2013 that have changed their lives for the better.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Looking for love<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>When it comes to love, online dating sites and the art of flirting and acting coy through the medium of apps have made people braver. In the first of three episodes, Richie Firth, radio presenter and DJ, talks about how he managed to find love in the unlikeliest of places: Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>For Richie \u2013 producer of the Christian O\u2019Connell Breakfast Show \u2013 the online world gave him the push and confidence he needed to find love. \u201cI may have a big personality on air but in reality I\u2019m pretty shy. I got together with my first wife when I was still at school so when we split up I had no idea how I was going to meet anyone new. I have to be active on social media for work and managed to pick up quite a big following. Natalie listened to the show and started chatting to me on Twitter. Through the magic of social media, I was able to let my personality shine through and we are now happily in love and living together \u2026 and there is a baby on the way! She is absolutely gorgeous, I\u2019d have never had the confidence to chat her up in a pub!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By taking a small risk online, the rewards (for him at least) were significant \u2013 and according to Kaspersky Lab\u2019s research, around <strong>21%<\/strong> of people agreed with the statement: <em>\u2018I credit my romantic situation to some risks I have taken online that I perhaps wouldn\u2019t have taken in real life.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"no\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/380506598&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\"><span style=\"width: 0px;overflow: hidden;line-height: 0\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Taking a gamble on your career<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In the second episode, Kaspersky Lab spoke to Holly Stevens, founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wowsersinyourtrousers.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Wowzers In Your Trousers.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Holly took the gamble of quitting her well-paid and stable job in order to open her own business \u2013 hanging everything on a Facebook page. \u201cI left my job in PR to go freelance \u2013 but then I was at a vintage style nail salon wearing a \u201950s style dress I\u2019d made. The manager loved it and when I told her I\u2019d made it myself, she asked me if I wanted to redesign and make her salon uniforms and placed an order for ten. I got home and set up a Facebook page on a bit of a whim. The salon order ultimately didn\u2019t work out, but with a little help from social media I started getting orders from all over the world \u2013 with one of my most coveted brands, Irregular Choice, calling my work \u2018amazing\u2019. By February 2017, I was booked solid until November \u2013 and I\u2019m currently taking orders for 2019!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lots of us may consider quitting our job to pursue our passion, but few of us take the risk.\u00a0However, research suggests that people see risk taking in their job as something they should perhaps do more of, with <strong>35%<\/strong> of people agreeing with the statement \u2018<em>I would be further up the career ladder had I taken more risks in the workplace.<\/em>\u2018<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"no\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/380506910&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Voicing your opinion<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In the final episode, Kaspersky Lab spoke to Nyomi, who sacrificed working full-time to run her parent blog and vlog website <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nomipalony.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Nomipalony<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecoming a mother really brought out my feminist views and that\u2019s probably what catapulted me to blog \u2013 it can be scary putting out what can be seen as \u2018unpopular\u2019 opinions in real life, so blogging gives me the freedom to do this. It also lets me go into depth in a way that I\u2019d never do in real life \u2013 I would never go into as much personal detail if I was face-to-face with someone! Blogging is also a cathartic experience \u2013 occasionally I\u2019ve written about a topic that has upset me and I\u2019ve found online support in a way that I haven\u2019t received in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nyomi uses her blog to express her opinions, from feminist views to restaurant reviews and baby topics, and it\u2019s this open approach to sharing her opinion that would put many of us off, often for fear of reprisal \u2013 we\u2019ve all heard about internet \u2018trolls\u2019, which is perhaps what stops many of us from expressing our opinion.\u00a0 However, with that said, some people are more confident online that they are offline, with <strong>10%<\/strong> of those asked agreeing that they\u2019re \u2018<em>prepared to take more risks online than in real life.<\/em>\u2018<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"no\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/380507111&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Making progress<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As psychotherapist Kathleen poses, without taking risks we can\u2019t as a society move forward. \u201c[Otherwise] how are we ever going to pioneer, or bring fresh opinion out into the world?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>So whilst we can often see the internet as a dangerous and foreboding place, we should instead see it as a source of opportunity \u2013 which, with the right online protection measures, can help us reap rewards in many aspects of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The digital realm has dramatically changed the way we interact with each other and provided a new vehicle for us to take a step into the unknown. Being online gives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":12993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1766,2133,2135,452,2138,2136,2134,2137],"class_list":{"0":"post-12989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-fearless","10":"tag-love","11":"tag-podcast","12":"tag-protected","13":"tag-relationship","14":"tag-start-up","15":"tag-success"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/fearless-taking-the-fear-out-of-online\/12989\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/fearless\/","name":"fearless"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12989"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17431,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions\/17431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}