Leadership by Geoff Colvin

Power Point: Be fearless

August 26, 2008: 7:37 PM ET

"I think that [small business owners] have to be fearless. I think that if you look at the innovators, the visionaries, these are all people who, when people viewed what they were trying to do, [they] wanted them locked up…You know it's a good idea when people say you're crazy."

-- Filmmaker Spike Lee while discussing opportunities and challenges for film industry entrepreneurs at an American Express OPEN event. The full discussion will later be available on OPENForum.com, a website designed by the small business unit of American Express (AXP).

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Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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