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Playing It Safe Is Riskier Than You Think

From a Harvard Business Review article cited by Tom Fishburne: “Executives and entrepreneurs face two very different sorts of risks. One is that their organization will make a bold move that failed — a risk they call ‘sinking the ship.’ The other is that their organization will fail to make a bold move that would…

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Dangerous Places

One of the questions I'm repeatedly asked in interviews is, “Aren't you afraid of all the dangerous countries?" It's usually followed by questions like "What's the worst thing that has happened to you?"

Despite 100 interviews over the past three months on book tour, I'm still not very good at the soundbyte. I have countries that try to deport me upon arrival and countries that write an official government response to my frustration at their bureaucracy. In a decade full of active traveling, I've also had a few more serious problems as well ...

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Beware of Life

From January to September 2009, 21,833 people died in my home state of Oregon. Just like that, each one of them left the world—here one day and gone the next. Several weeks ago, three hikers also died on our nearby Mount Hood in a tragic accident. After their deaths, there was the usual pontification about what they could have done differently. Despite the fact that they were all experienced climbers, and despite leaving for the hike when weather conditions were good, some people blamed their “risky behavior” and suggested various reforms that wouldn’t have made any difference in their case.

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