Mastering Risk

Send us Fan Mail Pugilism was an art, the settling of disputes with honour and integrity. We didn’t kick somewhen when they fell, we asked if they had enough and if so, we helped them up, dusted them off and headed to the bar to resume our drinks. Simple life, we all understood the rules and the rationale, an almost egalitarian time. The human animal was designed for physical combat, to strike and...

Send us Fan Mail We’re comfortable, enjoy being coddled and taken care of, whether that is by family or the government. We exist in a period of time with access to the entire knowledge of the species in the palm of our hand, yet we choose to remain stuck in place. Feel free to disagree, maybe you’re the outlier, but statistically speaking, you prefer to be in stasis of certainty and low risk.  Ant...

Send us Fan Mail A bit cheeky, yes. The point is that many roads lead to resilience, I’ve written a five part series on Substack about this, drawing a clear route to creating a more resilient and less susceptible life. However, many recent tragedies, like the flooding in Texas, reminds us of the fragility of life, how quickly it can all change and what really does matter.  Modern day minimalism ha...

Send us Fan Mail As many bemoan the chaos of this decade, Dr. Steven Pinker reminds us that this is, by a significant margin, the safest and most productive age of the human species. The calamities we face are minor irritants in comparison to those surmounted by our fore fathers; we have difficulty overcoming a few degrees of warmth, let alone a host of real and impactful calamities that used to k...

Send us Fan Mail How long can you survive if the power fails? A few hours, days, weeks, months? Are you self reliant or self sufficient, maybe a combination of both? We outline the strategies for navigating an extended power loss, speak to the types of prepared individuals and the difference between the concepts of self reliance and self sufficiency. Sit back, grab your favourite beverage - We bel...

Send us Fan Mail You'll only be successful when you choose to try. A life strategy is the operationalization of choosing to improve your fitness, mental health, financial condition, personal relationships, professional life, community relations and overall, your role on this planet. Full stop, no one is coming to help. It is not someone else's responsibility to pay your bills or create a...

Send us Fan Mail Business Continuity is disaster preparedness for business, often misunderstood and ignored by SMB. Most businesses dont survive one year after a disaster, and many are utterly unprepared for a significant event. Look how many needed immediate intervention from govnement to survive even the first few months of the pandemic.  Learn about strategic, cyber, operations and reputational...

Send us Fan Mail Chaos and disorder are what we normally correlate with an evacuation. Wildfire on the doorstep, screaming family members, driving from the scene through fire and haze. Let's not forget the hours long bumper to bumper traffic going somewhere, for who knows how long. Uncertainty reigns. But it is a choice, executing a well rehearsed and understood evacuation plan means order in...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve written at length about the need to incorporate all sectors of society in disaster response and recovery operations. For each significant event, there are four unique and often uncoordinated responses: the not for profit (NFP) industry ramping up services for their clients, the private sector enacting continuity operations and extending support to their network, the residents...

Send us Fan Mail According to Global Velocity , in the USA there are 59 million workers in the freelance or gig economy, earning over 500 million, with an estimated 50% of American workers completing at least one external independent contracting assignment this year. While grounded in the transportation industry, the emergence of consultants, IT, AI curators and a host of independent contractors i...

Send us Fan Mail Resilience is intentional and requires commitment. We often pursue ideas and strategies that are one and done. I’ll put in the effort, achieve the standard and we’re all good, nothing else to do. Being ready for the unknown, embracing uncertainty and navigating the unexpected is a skill set, one that requires regular maintenance and sharpening. Resilience is likely one of the most...

Send us Fan Mail Anthropological and sociological research has reasonably defined the spheres of influence in your world, a concept design, sometimes referred to as spatial. In simplest terms, it is a division of interests, those that motivate us and classify arenas in which we operate. While never homogenous, the literature reasonably agrees that political, economic, cultural, familial and natura...

Send us Fan Mail Further research grounds that even with a series of hazards, in some areas communities face a host of differentiating risks, there are limitations to the choices at hand. When drilled to the simplest form, humans have only two distinct choices, shelter in place or evacuate. Irrespective of the hazard or impact, the resulting decision for communities is what to do, limited to a bin...

Send us Fan Mail Seldom do people make decisions in isolation, they seek information, knowledge and opinion of trusted sources to inform what their options. We’re learning that counter to the neo-classical economic thought, humans make decisions on emotion and later use logic to justify it. We used to believe that decisions were made at the margins, incremental and always with our own best interes...

Send us Fan Mail Our intent in this five part series is to demystify the idea of resilience, to ground it in the philosophy of preparedness and to provide the operationalization of research. Everything that follows is based upon defendable data sources, evidence to support a recommended pathway, to ensure that you receive only what we “know” to be helpful. A caveat first - science is imperfect. It...

Send us Fan Mail Framing our situation is important, because the lens we choose to use when examining the world around us influences what we see, the actions we believe are helpful and the outcomes we seek. Ask an academic about the choice of theoretical frameworks and you’ll need copious amounts of caffeine to survive the lecture. Prominent, exceptionally important, yet rarely discussed. Leaders...

Send us Fan Mail We have seen a notable and systemic shift in the role of individualism in Canada , the emergence of a default assumption that the correct and appropriate response to a collective issue is government intervention. That may be in the form of access to financial resources, programatic offerings or a new set of policy interventions in society.  This set the stage for the pandemic, the...

Send us Fan Mail First, a sincere thank you for the support over the past half decade, we've been a stalwart voice in the pandemic, offering evidence-based strategies to protect your family from the personal and economic harm. Our Season 13 was grounded in providing that guidance and speaking to a number of key notable figures.  Season 14 begins with the 5th year anniversary episode, followed...

Send us Fan Mail This month I had the honour of visiting northern Ontario, while devoid of mountains and lighthouses, it has a unique beauty, a draw that mesmerizes the mind. A combination of the boreal forest and the Canadian Shield, the landscape is an endless assortment of 1000s of lakes, rivers, small towns and a connectedness to both the people and the land. A sense of place, whether here by...

Send us Fan Mail Tariffs, elections, wars and a host of other calamities lead many into learned helplessness, the idea that there is little within your control to protect against and ameliorate the effects of disasters. That is incorrect, you have the power of community, the strength embedded in the social capital - human relationships - across the business, public and private sectors of your comm...

Send us Fan Mail Mike Tyson was correct, we all have a plan, but few are ready for a right cross. Welcome to 2025, if you're not persuaded by now that this decade is disruptive and volatile, I'm not sure what would help. The foundation of preparedness is that it is up to you to strategize your life and then plan for the uncertain but likely chaotic event that is just around the corner. W...

Send us Fan Mail These are challenging times, we are facing an ever-increasing frequency of dramatic alternations to the international order, which have downstream influences on our lives. There seems little we control and therefore are doomed to be victims. A counter to that is to understand that we do have options, there is a methodology to find certainty and lower anxiety in these chaotic times...

Send us Fan Mail We exist in a dependant culture, one where we collectively expect and believe there is an entitlement to public sector support in times of disaster. We fund governments through taxation and the social contract dictates that services are afforded to the public in support of continued societal operations. There is much debate over the current state of public sector disaster organiza...

Send us Fan Mail There are no shortage of diatribes online about the state of global leadership, whether your guy is making the necessary realignments long called for but never enacted, or someone left the baboon door open at the zoo, and apologies to the baboons, this is a chaotic time for the global order. While expected in the 2020s , this is even more abrupt than some of the great thinkers ima...

Send us Fan Mail If we accept that the 2020s is our turn at the expected global organizational shift, then we might benefit from considering what we would like to see emerge. While we as individuals have little effect on national outcomes and international order, we can foster support for those who may be in unique positions. At each cycle in history, notable figures emerged, individuals with a po...