There’s a saying that if you bet the farm every year, one year you’re going to lose the farm. Nobody bats 1,000; circumstances can change out of your control.

Now, most entrepreneurs take more controlled risk and actually don’t think of themselves as risk takers, but in a way they may inadvertently be taking on more risk than they anticipated.

They could be betting almost all their entire personal financial farm on the company. That can be very typical in the early stage of a farm when an entrepreneur puts significant equity into the company and may even go out and borrower on the line of credit and, perhaps, even credit cards and does whatever it takes to get the company going.

Then at some point the company gets passed that. It gets passed the startup and the adolescent phase and becomes a successful, ongoing company.

It can be at this point when somebody might be inadvertently betting the farm entirely on the company. There may come a point when you might want to consider diversifying your risk and taking some money off the table while still keeping involved with the company.

1. Hopefully over time you’ve been able to build up some of your retirement accounts. If not, get them started. Except for certain accelerated plans, there’s only so much you can do every year. This is one that’s harder to make up for starting late.

2. Distribution. Perhaps, the income in your company has been large enough that you’ve been able to take out some true distribution from the companies, and not just for tax purposes. By doing so, you may have been able to put investments into other areas.

3. Real estate. Sometimes as a company grows, you may need to move into larger facilities. In some cases, entrepreneurs have been able to buy the real estate separately and lease it over to the company. That real estate remains as a viable ongoing asset irrespective of what might happen to the company.

4. Recapitalization. If your company is growing to a certain point and is earning some nice income, yet has some further growth potential, you might be a good candidate for recapitalization. This is where a private equity or other company buys the majority stake in your firm. You still retain a minority share. The new investment firm will provide additional resources that will allow you to grow and develop your company much more. You then can get to sell your company a second time when the company is sold again by the investment firm. Your minority stake in the second sale could turn out to be more valuable than what you sold the first time around. Recaps are a great way to take some chips off the table.

There could be other ways, but hopefully this makes you think about what you can do to diversify your exposure over time and not be betting your entire financial farm on your company every year.