Risk Takers Change Makers

Olivia Giudice - The Risk Lady

Real people. Real risks. Real change. Risk Takers, Change Makers explores what happens when ordinary humans step into uncertainty — at work, in leadership, in relationships and in life. No formulas. No glorified success stories. Just honest conversations about the risks we take, the changes they create and what we learn about ourselves along the way. Hosted by The Risk Lady, Olivia Giudice.

Episodes

  1. Aug 19

    Ep 1 - The Gate Was Always Closed: Terrie Morgan on Risk, Trust and Speaking Up

    Growing up on a farm, Terrie Morgan learned a simple rule early: leave a gate open and the livestock get out — and a whole day’s work can disappear with them. It’s a small lesson with a big afterlife. Decades into a career, from grain trader to lawyer to company secretary and board director, that same instinct — check the gate, think it through, understand what’s at stake before you act — still shapes how Terrie responds to risk. In this episode of Risk Takers, Change Makers, we explore what farm life taught Terrie about consequences, the upside of taking risks, what happens when fear of getting it wrong enters the picture, and why trust can make the difference between someone speaking up and staying silent. Long before Terrie had the professional language for risk, she was learning to think ahead. What might happen? What could go wrong? What do I need to check before I act? The gate was always closed. It made me wonder how many of the ways we respond to risk as adults were being shaped long before we ever entered a workplace. Terrie also reminds us that risk isn’t only about what could go wrong. Early in her agricultural career, working in a male-dominated field, she found genuine motivation in the challenge of proving herself. Taking the risk offered something on the other side of it. But that didn’t mean the fear disappeared. What helped was thinking through the consequences beforehand — not to eliminate uncertainty, but to understand what she might be dealing with if things didn’t go according to plan. Our conversation eventually moved from individual risk-taking to something I’ve become increasingly interested in: what the environment around us does to our risk response. Processes matter. But people still have to use them. They have to ask the uncomfortable question. Raise the concern. Admit they don’t understand. Tell someone senior that something doesn’t look right. And that’s where trust matters. In environments where Terrie felt trusted and safe to speak, speaking up came more easily. Where that trust wasn’t present, the calculation changed. Sometimes the most important risk control an organisation has is a human being deciding it’s safe enough to say something. A few things stayed with me from our conversation: • Our relationship with risk starts forming long before we enter the workplace. • Understanding consequences doesn’t remove uncertainty — it can help us feel more prepared to meet it. • Risk has an upside. • Processes matter, but humans still have to choose to use them. • Trust changes the calculation we make about whether it’s safe to speak. But perhaps what stayed with me most was that gate. Terrie didn’t learn about risk for the first time in a boardroom, governance framework or risk register. She learned it on a farm — through repetition, consequences and responsibility. Long before anyone taught us how to “manage risk”, life was already teaching us how to respond to it. The interesting question is what those lessons taught us — and whether they’re still serving us today.

  • 1 Episode

About

Real people. Real risks. Real change. Risk Takers, Change Makers explores what happens when ordinary humans step into uncertainty — at work, in leadership, in relationships and in life. No formulas. No glorified success stories. Just honest conversations about the risks we take, the changes they create and what we learn about ourselves along the way. Hosted by The Risk Lady, Olivia Giudice.

Information

  • Creator
    Olivia Giudice - The Risk Lady
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    1
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Olivia Giudice - The Risk Lady