# 8 That time I was nearly gored by a woolly mammoth.
Many of my friends and family say that I have a sometimes unhealthy tolerance for risk, and in many ways they are 100% right. I've bungee jumped into a river full of crocodiles. I've been skydiving on more than just my 30th birthday. I've sailed into pirate-infested waters (a newsletter for another day), and you should see how this configuration of 6'8" and 230 pounds skis (hint: not a lot of "turning" or "form"). I don't read the actuarial tables.
However, in other ways I feel a little bit like a risk imposter. I drew a bag on a whiteboard with a numbered serial tag and a plan for how to repair and return recycled bags so they can be used again and again in THE SUMMER OF 2012. It took me another SEVEN years to do a Kickstarter to test out the product (where between that and IndieGoGo we sold $600,000+ worth of bags in 30 days). In that seven years, I could've launched my new bag company in the golden era of e-commerce alongside brands like TOMS, Allbirds, Outdoor Voices, and Reformation, when Facebook advertising was quaintly and astonishingly cheap and those brands grew at LIGHT speed. If anything, we certainly could have raised more capital, and been in the market for an additional seven years, which would have meant millions and maybe tens of millions of dollars of growth and impact.
I did not do that, which is probably why I now have a newsletter about business mistakes and my boat is still "pending".
I've never understood why I'm SO risk tolerant in some areas and risk averse in others. What I have learned though, is that 1) I’m not alone and 2) there is a very good reason for it.
Hesitation is a fight- or flight- level mechanism. Evolutionarily, those early humans who hesitated avoided being gored because they weren’t the first ones out of hiding when hunting a school bus-sized woolly mammoth. Those who waited while others gorged themselves avoided getting sick from diseased meat. It's 100% natural, and in some ways evolutionarily advantageous, to give pause to scary things.
It's not just humans. Even today, during the great migrations in places like Kenya and Tanzania, wildebeests don't cross the Mara River individually because they most certainly will be eaten by Nile crocodiles the size of your Prius. Instead, they wait until the herd on one side of the river has reached a density at which each individual feels their chances of survival is increased, mainly based on the number of individuals around them. This collective decision-making is based on stress cues the animals get from on another. Once the herd reaches a size that each individual feels safe, it moves (and not in the orderly fashion you might expect. It. Is. Chaos). The Prius crocodiles feast around the edges of the herd, and it's why Nile crocodiles are some of the biggest in the world. Undoubtedly the wildebeest members that do not have the strength or wit to get to the center of the mob where it's safe get eaten. The herd survives, and is actually strengthened by losing some of the dead weight in it's gene pool. At least in Tanzania and with wildebeests, waiting is a GREAT thing.
So, if waiting and hesitation saves lives, how did humans evolve to be the animal kingdom's Olympic-level risk takers?
The answer shouldn't surprise you even a little bit. To humans then, now, and forever-more: with humans risks MIGHT get you killed, but they DEFINITELY get you laid.
The early humans who developed risk tolerance, that is, the first ones out of the bushes to the mammoth, the first ones to the meat, and the first ones to move into new territories and take up new environments CERTAINLY died at higher rates than their more risk averse tribe mates. But they also reaped the benefits at disproportionately higher rates. They found new and better resources; they got the biggest share of the hunt. This brought status within the tribe, and along with status, a larger choice of mates.
Humans were able to press these advantages more than say chimpanzees or neanderthals because we have more developed pre-frontal cortex. This essentially means we're better at both impulse control and long-term planning than other primates (and certainly other non-primates. Even you dolphins, quit being so smug).
So, what does this have to do with backpacks? Not much, but isn't this fun?
J/K, I'm getting to it.
So instead of launching in 2012 when I had the idea, or even 2019 immediately after Kickstarter, I waited and I launched it in March of 2020, which was notable timing, considering the world was about to grind to a HALT because of COVID.
Late that March, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania started shutting non-essential businesses down, so instead of selling my delightful sustainable laptop backpacks that spring, I found myself scouring the nation for domestically produced plastic so that we could make PPE just to keep our doors open. We found a football field's worth that was originally supposed to be those collars dogs wear after surgery (they needed it less than us).
We turned the plastic into face shields. When that ran out, we made face masks out of our canvas. All in all, we sold approximately zero backpacks for the first five months we were in the market, but hundreds of thousands of units of PPE.
and the award for the "first thing to be eaten by the Prius crocodile" goes too...
We survived, but barely. The truth of all of the waiting is that I was scared to "face the mammoth". I listened to the voices of reason and as a result, my timing was very bad.
Despite having a high risk tolerance and being who I thought was a very decisive person, I have a million more examples of this. When I wait, I continually and tragically miss the boat.
Since we're coming up on New Year's resolution season, here's this week's lesson-learned...DON'T WAIT. Whether it's starting that business idea, changing jobs from the one you HATE, or telling that person you have a crush on that you fancy the wool of their mammoth- people move on, pandemics happen, and the world changes. I do not know how the risk you take will affect your life, but here's what I can say with absolute certainty: good things will VERY rarely happen to you while you're sitting at home scrolling through your phone.
Get in the arena. I promise you you will not regret getting off your a$$. Ever.
Just don't forget your backpack;)
It's All For the Birds,
Ian
PS-Each week I look at the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned at Day Owl so hopefully, you don't have to. I also do an Instagram reel to go with this note @hellodayowls. This is all rather embarrassing for me and hopefully entertaining for you. We’re calling it all "For the Birds", and this is installment #8. Comment (it makes it so much more fun), ask whatever you want, and if this reminds you of something YOU want to share, text me...724.312.1012.
