Recently the debate has been brought into focus that if successful people take new things and take risks rather than the thing that they've done well. For my part, I do not agree that success comes from taking new things or taking risks. On the contrast, I think taking risks could not lead to continuous success.
To begin with, whether an individual takes risk to be successful or not, he must do something well. It is rational to except that an individual without any capacity would not be successful in any domain. Even if he takes new things or risks appropriately, which brought him a big chance to be successful; he may not have enough ability to capture that chance. Thus, success is based on capability of an individual instead of taking risks.
Moreover, only minority of people could gain their success by taking new things or risks. Taking new things or risks means an individual chooses an unfamiliar area which may bring him less competition or a fast development of that area in the future. However, perhaps the new area is not so good as risk taker's thought, or perhaps inexperience of the new area lead to final failure. A survey has shown that only a small part of successful people in China win their success in an area which they do not familiar with. Therefore, taking risks or new things is not a normal way to gain success for most of people.
Last but not the least, people who obtain their success by taking new things or risks, would not be always successful if they continuous try something new. Admittedly, as I mentioned above, minority of people could gain their success from taking risks. Nevertheless, if a successful people put his capital on risks again and again, whatever how lucky he is, it must be one time he loses all his property.
To sum up, taking risks may lead to one success for minority of people, however, it also need capability of people. Hence, I think taking new things or risks is not a good choice for people who want to be continuous success.