My column in today's Tennessean examines risk in these difficult economic times:

Risk. It seems to be at the heart of entrepreneurship. Whenever I ask a group to describe entrepreneurship, the word risk is always one of the first things people mention.

Most often people associate risk with failure. This is commonly called "sinking-the-boat risk." It is the risk of putting your money, your time and your reputation into a new business only to have it fail.