Mark: A study of nearly thirty thousand startups found that companies led by female founders were 19% less likely to fail. Yet, venture capitalists consistently label women as 'risk-averse.' What if our entire understanding of who is a risk-taker is fundamentally wrong? Michelle: That’s a fascinating statistic. It completely flips the script on the whole 'men are from Mars, women are from Venus' approach to risk. It suggests we're not just getting the answer wrong; we're asking the wrong question entirely. Mark: That is the central, brilliant question in Michele Wucker's book, You Are What You Risk. Michelle: Right, and Wucker is the perfect person to tackle this. She's not just some business guru; she has a deep background in international affairs and policy. She's the one who coined the term 'gray rhino'—that concept that even the Chinese government adopted to talk about obvious financial risks they were ignoring. Mark: Exactly. She brings this global, systemic view to our very personal decisions. And for her, it all starts with a story about her grandmother, who was a true paradox of risk.

Michelle: Okay, I’m hooked. A paradox? What did her grandmother do? Mark: Her grandmother, who she called Bobonne, was a Belgian woman who lived through World War II. And during the war, she was incredibly courageous. She risked her life delivering messages for the Resistance, hiding them in a hollowed-out loaf of bread and cycling past Nazi patrols. Michelle: Wow. That’s movie-level bravery. A genuine hero. So she was clearly a massive risk-taker. Mark: You would think so. But decades later, living in the United States, Bobonne developed a serious abdominal aneurysm. Doctors told her she needed a relatively routine surgery. And she flatly refused. For years. She was terrified of it. Her family pleaded with her, but she was stubborn, obstinate, and just wouldn't do it. Michelle: Hold on. She was brave enough to face down the Gestapo but was scared of a doctor? How does that even compute? Mark: That’s the puzzle that sets up the whole book. Wucker realized we don't have one single risk setting. We have what she calls a "risk fingerprint"—a unique, complex profile that's different for every person and even different across areas of our own lives. Bobonne was brave in the face of active, immediate, purposeful danger. But she was terrified of a passive, clinical, out-of-her-control health risk. Michelle: That makes so much sense. It’s like my uncle who will happily jump out of a plane but is terrified of asking for a raise. The risk isn't the same, even if it looks like it from the outside. Mark: Precisely. Wucker distinguishes between "active risks"—like starting a business or, you know, fighting Nazis—and "passive risks." These are the risks of inaction, of procrastination. Putting off that surgery, not saving for retirement, staying in a dead-end job. And she argues these passive risks are often far more common and destructive. Michelle: It’s the danger you know, but you just keep kicking the can down the road. That feels incredibly familiar. Mark: And it’s not always about fear. Take the story of Annie Edson Taylor. In 1901, at 63 years old, she was a widowed schoolteacher facing poverty. She needed to make money, fast. So she decided to do something no one had ever survived before. Michelle: What was it? Mark: She decided to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Michelle: You're kidding. A 63-year-old schoolteacher? That sounds like a suicide mission, not a financial plan. Mark: To everyone else, yes. But to her, the risk of poverty and destitution was greater than the risk of the falls. She meticulously designed her barrel, padded it, and even sent her cat over for a test run. The cat survived, by the way. Michelle: The cat survived! That’s a crucial detail. Mark: It is! She saw the potential benefit—fame and fortune—as so huge that it shrank the perceived physical risk. She survived, but the story has a tragic ending. Her manager stole the barrel and toured with an imposter, and she died in poverty anyway. But her decision shows how our circumstances, our "risk ecosystem," can completely warp our perception of what's a sensible risk to take.

Michelle: This idea of passive risk, of the dangers we know are there but ignore, sounds a lot like that 'gray rhino' concept you mentioned earlier. How does that fit in? Mark: It's the next logical step. A gray rhino, as Wucker defines it, is a highly obvious, highly probable, high-impact threat that we still manage to ignore. It's not a "black swan"—a totally unpredictable event. It's a two-ton beast with a horn, charging right at you, and you're just standing there, checking your phone. Michelle: So it's basically that giant pile of laundry you know you have to do, but you just keep walking past it, hoping it will magically disappear? Mark: That's the perfect analogy, just with much higher stakes. The most powerful example of this concept in action was in 2017. The Chinese government was getting worried about its overheated financial markets. High-level officials started talking about the need to fend off "gray rhino risks." Then, the state-run newspaper, People's Daily, ran a front-page editorial about it. Michelle: A government using a zoological metaphor to talk finance. I like it. What happened? Mark: The market understood the signal immediately. It was a clear warning: a crackdown is coming. Traders reacted instantly. Shares in companies seen as risky plummeted by about 5 percent in a single day. The term went viral globally. Wucker's metaphor became a tool for massive policy action. Michelle: Okay, a government crackdown is one thing. But the book says this applies to our personal lives, right? The quote that hit me was from a reader who told Wucker, 'My marriage was a gray rhino!' Everyone saw it coming but her. Mark: Yes! That's where it gets really powerful. It’s the health problem you ignore, the toxic friendship you tolerate, the credit card debt you pretend isn't growing. The book shares a story from a CEO of an environmental private equity firm. He said he looked at all the companies in his portfolio that had failed. Michelle: And what did he find? Mark: He said, "It wasn’t the business model, or the technology, or the market conditions that did them in. It was personal issues with company leadership that led to poor risk decisions: the driving under the influence, the domestic violence." The leaders' personal gray rhinos trampled their own companies. It shows how deeply interconnected our personal and professional risk lives are. Michelle: Wow. So your personal blind spots can become your company's bankruptcy. That’s a sobering thought. It’s not about spreadsheets; it’s about self-awareness. Mark: Exactly. And if we don't deal with our gray rhinos, we fall into what Wucker argues is the biggest risk of all. Michelle: Which is? Mark: Standing still.

Michelle: That feels so counter-intuitive. Isn't standing still, being safe, the opposite of risk? Mark: That's the conventional wisdom Wucker wants to shatter. And she uses the incredible story of Megan and Marty Bhatia to do it. In the early 2000s, they were the picture of success. They had built a thriving real estate development business in Chicago. Michelle: Okay, setting the scene. They're doing well. Mark: Then 2008 happened. The financial crisis and real estate crash completely wiped them out. They were left with massive debt, their businesses in ruins. They felt trapped. Michelle: That's devastating. So what did they do? Hunker down, rebuild slowly, play it safe? Mark: They did the exact opposite. As they started to recover, they had twins. And they looked at the uncertain world, at their lives, and felt that the traditional path—the mortgage, the 9-to-5 grind—was the real trap. So they made a radical decision. They sold their home, their belongings, everything they had left. Michelle: And did what? Mark: They decided to travel the world. With their two toddlers. Michelle: That sounds like the riskiest thing you could possibly do! Not the safest. That's pure insanity to most people. Mark: It seems that way. But they had a different perspective. Megan, the wife, said that after the crash, their perspective on security completely changed. She said, "In the past, the idea of losing our home would have caused massive stress. Now, the idea of owning a home stresses us out." They felt that in a rapidly changing world, the most important skills they could give their kids were adaptability and resilience, not a fixed address. Michelle: So they were trading one kind of security for another. Financial security for emotional and psychological resilience. Mark: Precisely. They believed the biggest risk was rigidity. As Megan said, "We’re both on the same page feeling that staying the same is the riskiest thing we can do. In the future, the people with the hardest time will be the most rigid ones." Michelle: So what happened to them? Where did this massive gamble lead? Mark: This is the amazing part. They traveled through South America, Europe... and in early 2020, they were in Australia when the wildfires hit. They cut their trip short and decided to relocate to New Zealand. And that's where they were when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. Michelle: New Zealand. Arguably one of the safest, most stable places on the planet during that crisis. Mark: Exactly. Their seemingly reckless, high-risk decision to abandon traditional stability led them to a place of ultimate safety and security, precisely when the rest ofthe world was thrown into chaos. Their biggest risk became their greatest safety net.

Michelle: Wow. That story really ties it all together. It's not about avoiding risk, but about consciously choosing the right risks. The risk of stagnation versus the risk of adventure. The risk of ignoring a problem—a gray rhino—versus the risk of confronting it head-on. Mark: That's the core of it. It's about moving from a place of fear to a place of purpose. The Bhatias weren't just running away from something; they were running towards a new set of values: learning, adaptability, and family connection. Michelle: The book has received some mixed reactions. Some readers found these concepts revolutionary, while others felt it was treading on the well-worn ground of personality tests. But hearing these stories, the real innovation seems to be in connecting these big, abstract ideas to our actual, lived experiences. Mark: I think that's right. Wucker isn't just giving us labels. She's giving us a new language. She calls it developing 'risk empathy'—the ability to understand why someone else's risk fingerprint is different from yours—and 'risk literacy.' It starts by asking yourself a few simple but profound questions. Michelle: What are they? Mark: First: What's my risk fingerprint? Am I a Bobonne, brave in one area and fearful in another? Second: What are my gray rhinos? What obvious dangers am I choosing to ignore in my life or my work? Michelle: And the third, based on the Bhatias' story, must be the most important one. Mark: It is. Am I more afraid of moving forward, or of being left behind? Michelle: That's a powerful question to end on. It really forces you to re-evaluate what 'safety' even means. We'd love to hear from our listeners. What's a 'gray rhino' you've faced in your own life? Or have you ever taken a leap like the Bhatia family? Share your story with the Aibrary community on our social channels. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.