In our experience, most folks, including ourselves don’t have enough of an understanding of risk and the role it plays in our lives and careers and so we have made a concerted effort as a team to have conversations about risk with our interviewees. We’ve shared some highlights below.

Madison Boehm | Co-Founder

Every entrepreneur can agree that starting a new business is risky. What if this doesn’t work out? What if I invest all my savings, and it doesn’t go as planned? What if no one is interested in my product? Many successful entrepreneurs we know take significant risks. One that pays off big and allows them to build a successful career or one that means they find themselves entirely out of business. When starting a brand new venture, there are no safety nets. There is not a rule book with step-by-step instructions to help guide you. In most cases, it is up to you as the owner to figure most situations out on your own. The risk are high and the psychological price it takes is often higher. Read more>>

Jan Carroll | Owner

Risk is something I don’t give too much thought to honestly. When I have an idea or make a decision I generally plan and execute pretty quickly. My intuition guides me in most decisions I make. With all big decisions it’s always a good idea to weigh your options but I don’t let the ‘what ifs’ dictate my plan. I tend to live pretty fearlessly in all aspects of my life. Read more>>

Janelle Augustin | Owner

I think risk is necessary part of any career or business. I took a risk even starting my business. My husband and I had to spend our savings with the hope that this would be a successful venture. When we have to pay a large fee to be apart of an event we run the risk of not breaking even if it has a low turnout. Every investment is a risk, and we can’t grow if we don’t invest. Read more>>

David Antelo | Emergency Water Purification Equipment Engineering and Manufacturing

Utter the word risk and our brains immediately go into defense mode, it’s just human nature. Conventional ideas like risk/reward ratios or risk mitigation are based on the premise that taking a risk is an adverse prerequisite, or some obstacle to overcome to achieve a desired result. I learned something at a young age that changed my relationship with risk. I was a small kid as a freshman in high school but I wanted to play football…the epitome of risk, just ask my mom. Somehow I managed to get the most tackles and never got hurt, earning me the nickname Antelo the Hun. I think it was because I never braced myself before a tackle and went in as hard as I could, which in hindsight probably not the smartest thing to do. Read more>>

Vanessa Garcia | Writer

My entire life has been a risk. I don’t feel that you can make change without risk. It’s scary, it makes your stomach turn sometimes, but with that turn comes a turn in your life and that makes all the difference. I’ve never had a 9-5 and sometimes that has meant walking instead of being able to take the subway in New York for lack of fare, back in my twenties. Sometimes it’s literally meant going hungry. Later, it meant leaving behind a secure and steady income as a full professor because I needed to write full time. I’ve always been committed to what I consider my life’s mission and sometimes the things I do in order to stay on that mission is full of risk. I also realized that because I had very little money growing up, because I was raised in a tiny little 400square foot efficiency with three other people, for a big chunk of my life. Read more>>