Risk Takers Change Makers

In this episode, I sit down with Silvia Saad to talk about a lifetime of navigating change and uncertainty — from growing up with the story of her father's move from Czechoslovakia to Australia with two children and two suitcases, to changing careers, moving her own family to China, starting a business and, more recently, making a difficult decision about her son's schooling.

What I loved about this conversation is that it isn't a story about being fearless or taking bigger risks. It's about learning to weigh what matters, accepting what we can't control, considering how our choices affect the people around us — and creating enough space to respond rather than simply react.

We also talk about speaking up when something isn't fair, change fatigue, motherhood, clear communication, and why trusting yourself doesn't mean ignoring the consequences.

Because taking a risk isn't always about making the boldest choice. Sometimes it's about knowing yourself well enough to make the choice that's right for you.

·       Where our relationship with risk begins: How Silvia's upbringing and her father's decision to move his family from Czechoslovakia to Australia shaped what felt possible to her.

·       The risks we take for other people: From speaking up for colleagues at work to making difficult decisions as a parent, we explore what happens when our choices affect more than just us.

·       When change gets exhausting: Why even people who are comfortable with change can experience change fatigue — and start longing for the quick fix.

·       Acceptance isn't the same as giving up: Silvia's river analogy leads us into a conversation about recognising what we can influence and when we're simply exhausting ourselves rowing upstream.

·       What happens before we decide: We talk about pressure, breathing, seeking other people's opinions and creating enough space between the initial reaction and what we choose to do next.

·       Learning to trust yourself: Silvia reflects on weighing consequences without allowing uncertainty to stop her from trying something new.

Our relationship with risk doesn't develop in a vacuum. It's shaped by family, culture, experience, relationships and the choices we've already lived through.

00:00 — Introducing Silvia Saad and the theme of risk
02:02 — What Silvia learned about risk growing up
04:03 — Why mindset matters when deciding whether to act
06:37 — Freedom, relationships and considering others
09:43 — When it feels safer to stay quiet or conform
11:42 — Taking a stand for fairness at work
15:56 — A career leap into a different role
19:36 — Moving to China and taking a risk as a family
21:31 — Studying nutrition and starting a new career path
23:48 — Change fatigue and why change can be hard
26:31 — Acceptance and the "going with the flow" analogy
30:17 — The value of direct, clear communication
31:27 — Seeing risk as uncertainty and opportunity
35:16 — Weighing consequences before taking action
37:31 — What pressure and uncertainty feel like
43:09 — Pausing before making a decision
44:34 — Responding rather than reacting
46:07 — Making an uncomfortable decision about school
51:46 — What gives Silvia hope

Risk Takers, Change Makers is a podcast about what happens when humans step into uncertainty.

No polished success stories. Just honest conversations about being human when you don't know what happens next.

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.