Everything you want to know is on the other side of "doing".
This is something my brother would always say to me when contemplating the things I wanted to do with my life.
We can sit and ponder all possibilities, risks, rewards, certainties and uncertainties until "the cows come home".
But nothing really answers your questions like doing the thing, and it provides the answers to you.
Risk. Reward. In that order.
I'm sure there's a process, finely tuned, to optimise going from where you are, through the path of risk, and hopefully ending up with the reward.
The process is one thing. The person, who has to travel this path, another thing altogether.
And, much like PKI you need both for things to work effectively.
The public key, is the process, the part everyone sees- the course you decide to take, you showing up every day, the part-time jobs with flexibility to pay the bills, keeping up with family commitments- these are public things.
The private key, and probably the most critical component, is you and your mental space, how your mind works, how you're talking to yourself, what you make yourself focus on, how you make space to tend to this area of your being- people don't see this, but you lose this (like PKI) you lose everything.
The Risk and Reward. The Public and Private. The Ying and Yang.
And how do we bring these things together? By doing shit.