Her mother could hardly bear to watch as her sturdy little girl, a chubby five-year-old, climbed the ladder. Curled toes gripping the sandy surface, she pads to the edge of the cantilevered platform, suspended above the deep end of the public pool. She pretends not to be afraid, refusing to look down as her mummy yelps “Susie!” from below. Big breath. Eyes open, jaw clenched, she steps off, legs cycling frantically as she falls through the air. Not the first time she feels nothing beneath her feet, it won’t be the last.

Studies consider whether risk-takers are born of context or genetic predisposition: in some, it’s a fight or flight response to a childhood fraught with danger, dodging bullets in the turf war between warring parents, a Darwinian “struggle for survival”, in others, a mutation in the way the brain processes dopamine, the slap-happy chemical risk-takers can’t seem to get enough of. While the particulars of risk morph as we age, the stakes remain high, the payoffs tantalising, yet even free-range kids raising themselves in a dangerous world often become fearful adults, clinging to the edge of the abyss, opting for safe choices. For some, the flip side of Covid-19 has been the realisation that our comfort zones bore us to tears, holding us back from living our best lives. But change is scary. So, is it possible to train ourselves to feel the fear and risk it anyway?

Post-pandemic, or at least post-lockdown, as we grudgingly learn to co-exist with the virus, some of us are tempted to make consequential transformations, from quitting a job to starting up a new venture, getting divorced to getting married, upping sticks and moving to another city or even another country. Faced with our mortality, the virus can be credited with forcing us to stop and listen to ourselves; the breakthrough infections we’re experiencing are not so much viral as they are breakthroughs on deeply personal levels, beginning with taking inventory of what truly matters, then making the changes these assessments engender.

A choreographer friend in Miami, one of the hardest-hit states in the US, threatens to get a T-shirt made emblazoned with the phrase I ? Covid! Despite the hardships imposed on her life and work, she embraces the pandemic’s cataclysmic reordering of the world, as we know it. Indian author Arundhati Roy describes the pandemic as “a portal, a gateway between one world and the next”, offering us an opportunity to leave the worst of ourselves behind, to “walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.”

Subversive marketing expert Emily Ross is co-author of Just Evil Enough, a playbook (available to preorder) that redefines what is possible through NOT playing by the rules. In her 20s, Emily ran away with the circus, replacing a knife thrower’s assistant on maternity leave, yet considers herself more of a control freak than a reckless risk-taker. She credits success in business and life on calculated risk-taking: “Ask yourself what’s the worst that could happen. Calculate the odds, do your homework, then ride the challenge with your eyes wide open!” If not now, when? If not you, who? @susanzelouf

1. I’M PLAYING with post-lockdown locks, like www.accidentalicon.com Lynn Slater.

2. I’M SAYING bye bye to dye. Read Anne Kreamer’s Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters to transition to silver vixen.

3. I’M CATCHING waves at www.inchydoneysurfschool.com then trading the wetsuit for a fluffy robe at Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa, because risks have their rewards.

4. I’M TOUGHING it out in a Femme Fatale patent leather trench from www.aidakaas.com.

5. I’M BRINGING babushka back in Versace AW21, in homage to my great-grandma who fled the old country for a better life.

6. I’M PAIRING the tiniest bags with the highest platforms, in the footsteps of risk-taker Donatella Versace.

7. I’M BREAKING barriers, inspired by Shellye Archambeau, one of Silicon Valley’s first African-American CEOs.

8. I’M PACKING a punch in EdgeOnly’s 14ct gold POW! necklace, made in Ireland and hallmarked in Dublin Castle. www.edgeonly.com

9. I’M STRAPPING in for a bumpy ride in Dior AW21, because risky business is not without perils. Wheee!

10. I’M LICKING my lips at the prospect of life on the edge, in Pat McGrath Labs MatteTrance Lipstick Elson, a saturated blue red.