Bridger Pennington shares advice that shaped his approach to risk. A mentor told him the worst case scenario of starting a business wasn't failure itself, but having to move back with family or return to school. That reframing made him willing to try.
Chapters
This is the best advice I got in my early 20s. I was at college, I was wanting to start a business, but I felt like it would be too risky to go launch a business. Maybe I'd have to drop out of school. This guy came from Harvard University and spoke, and he was really impressive. He'd started a business. He finished his talk and he came to the back of the room. I said, hey, thank you for your speech. I got one question for you. What would you do in my situation? And he said something to me that absolutely changed my life. He said, so if you go launch this business and it fails, you hit ground zero, like it's just terrible, do you have a family member or a friend that you could like move in, sleep on their couch with, and live with for 2 or 3 months while you got back on your feet? Yeah. And he said, also, do you think this school would allow you to pay them money to come back to this school? I was like, yeah. And he goes, Bridger, we're not talking about the same thing here. Your worst-case scenario is you get to move in with a family member or friend who loves you, with food in the fridge, with a place to sleep, and you can probably come back to school here and be just fine. Your worst-case scenario is better than 90% of the world lives right now. He said, Bridger, I mean, it's up to you, but I think I would take that bet.
