Before a big risk, ask what the worst case is and whether you’d survive it. Usually the answer is yes.

Risk feels infinite until you give it a floor. Once you know the actual bottom, the decision changes character: you are no longer betting everything, you are betting a specific and often recoverable amount. Most of what stops people is an unexamined sense of total ruin rather than a real one.

Say plainly what happens if this fails: what you lose, how long it sets you back, who is affected. Then ask whether you could rebuild from there. If you could, the remaining question is only whether the upside is worth the trouble.