Snap Judgment: When to Trust Your Instincts, When to Ignore Them, and How to Avoid Making Big Mistakes with Your Money

8. Risk Tolerance and Investing

In 2004, Robert Young Pelton was hiking in the dreaded Darien Gap, a remote and wild area of the Colombian jungle that straddles the border with Panama. The Darien Gap is filled with snakes, wasps, poisonous plants, insect-borne diseases, and also men: It is a base for armed rebels hiding from Colombian authorities. This last threat was to prove the most troublesome to Pelton: He and two companions were kidnapped at gunpoint by right-wing Columbian paramilitaries. He was lucky they had bothered to kidnap him rather than just kill him—minutes before, the paramilitaries shot to death four people in an ambush. During the next few days of captivity, Pelton was kept constantly on the move in the jungle and traded among ...