How to make failure cheap or How you know a bad deal

While working with entrepreneurs, I notice they develop an ability to make failure cheap. This idea is fleshed out by Scott Anthony a bit. Essentially it is ability to design a system so that if and when failure occurs it does not cost very much.
I naturally apply this method when traveling. When I went to India, it had been nearly a year since I had experience negotiating cross culturally. My negotiation skills were fairly weak and knew I needed to get the bad deals out of the way in a hurry. So I sought out some inexpensive items to being with and negotiate away.
The first deal was for these furry slippers that would be perfect for my dad. I casually look at them then begin to negotiate. I hit all the points of the deal.
1. Interjecting deal talk with relationship talk. I learned the young man was from Kashmir.
2. Grouping items, so that you have multiple elements within the negotiation. I added another pair of slippers and a hat. I would add volume and drop price, then drop volume and and keep price.
3. Force the deal. I put the money I was willing to pay in his hand.

Once I finished the deal and the Kashmiri guy accepted the money. He started packing my items in a nice bag. This was a bad sign. If you strike a really good deal, the vendor will just take your money and let you walk away with the items without a bag. By his courteous bagging of my items, I figured I payed about 15% too much.
After the slippers were bagged, the guy told me that if I was ever around I should enjoy tea with him. This was a further indicated that I paid too much. He was really happy with the outcome of the deal. After this invitation, I suspect I paid about 20% over what more savvy bargainers pay.
Then he said something I will never forget, "you are my friend. No, my brother. You are my brother." He probably said this because he will use what I paid for a down payment on his dowry. I must have really gotten taken.

It turns out that I had forgotten to walk away at least twice. I had also forgotten to bargain in earlier in the day, as I have more time to shop around. I was rusty. I am glad I got this deal out of way for inexpensive slippers.

Insurance Preparation

I have purchased mandatory insurance, for my Rotary Trip. It was difficult especially in light of all the bad press the insurance industry is getting. Will my claim be denied because I took unnecessary risk by eating with my hand, taking a bus at night or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or forgetting to put a comma between Minneapolis and Minnesota on my application? All these questions. I guess I have solace in knowing that it is required for my trip and have to pay for it.
This all reminds me of a time long ago in Guatemala.
I was sitting at a bar in back of my hotel on the beach in Monte Rico.

The waves were pounding the black volcanic sand. An even darker black covered the sky and I remember wondering where the moon was hiding. A drunk was making going on and on in the background and he was easy to ignore as my Spanish was not that good.
Eventually I started to understand what he was ranting about. For a moment I thought it was because my Spanish ability had finally gone over the tipping point and I suddenly understood. But unfortunately I realized he was using his English to aim his rant towards me. I started listening to his speech. Something was strange besides the slur of his words. He was speaking in a sort of strange dialect. It was sort of a mixture between thug language that I recognized from Rap music and a sort of prison language I recognized from volunteer work.
At the time in my foolish youth, I thought the man was trying to engage me in conversation. Now, I realize he was egging for a fight. "F&*K George Bush" he exclaimed, I said something recognizing that certain policies may make people angry. His rebuttal was simply "F*#K AMERICA", which surprised me because I thought people in Latin America thought of themselves as Americans too. In fact I was particularly conscious to introduce myself as from the Estados Unidos. In my foolishness I also responded, "Ok, man, whatever". Then he took it up a notch and exclaimed possibly the most powerful word in the English language. A word that almost has the power of a magic spell. Its simple utterance can ruin careers, attract immediate media attention and sway juries. "F&# the" and he dropped the N-Bomb. I don't know why I chose this moment to respond to. Perhaps it was my years of good liberal education at university, perhaps it was due to the intercultural training I had just completed, but for whatever reason, I decided that some drunk guy in Guatemala should not be able to drop the N-Bomb without a reasoned and well mannered rebuke."Listen, you just can say that" I remember saying.
The next events were a blur. Short popping clipped off in the background, I turned to my friend. "I was just in an argument with this guy and he is now shooting a gun in the air." I am glad someone had the reason and deciseness to determine what happens next. "We are leaving now through the back." We walked out the back onto the beach and walked through the back of another hotel. We stepped back out into the dark moonless night and then things got darker. Way dark....
The next thing I know I wake up to the sounds of a grown man screaming. Hearing a grown man scream is particularly chilling. The high pitched scream is as familiar as children screaming in the park or the damsel screaming in a horror movie. But, to hear a man scream is somehow gruesome in its strangeness and unfamiliarity. My mind went back to the last time I had heard the sound, which was in fact ten years earlier when I had watched the movie Dances with Wolves. It was the scene where the main character wakes up in the field hospital and there are buckets of limbs and hacksaw amputations. I open my eyes and there is a single light bulb hanging from a wire illuminating the tiny dark room. I can honestly say that this moment in time marks the single most horrifying moment I have experienced.
I turn my head and my friend, thank God, is right next to me. His was laying his head on my table sleeping. He opens his eyes awakened my my sudden movement. My mind is filled with amputation horror and I clearly enunciate the next words, "Don't let them take anything from me." He tried to calm me down my telling me the doctor would arrive soon. This only send me into a panic. I stand up in my attempt to escape and make a few steps. I realize there is an IV stuck in my arm and a bag of fluid is following me. "I am fine now, we should leave" I say. But my friend was able to settle me down.
I sit down and the doctor returns. He explains that in my attempted escape from the armed drunkard, I had fallen into an empty pool and hit my head pretty badly. He stitched up my head , put my shattered arm in a sling and taken several X rays. The bill ended up being about $100. I paid cash.
Anyway, this whole incident makes me wonder if I even need insurance.