Entrepreneurship isn’t about lone geniuses or flawless ideas. It’s about resilience—the ability to endure, adapt, and ask for help when the unknowns threaten to knock you down. Psychological endurance may be the single greatest predictor of entrepreneurial success.
The media often glorifies entrepreneurs as heroic figures—courageous, cunning, larger than life. But the truth is that no one succeeds alone. Success depends on the collective resilience of co-founders, investors, customers, and teams. Early-stage companies don’t need business plans as much as they need contingency plans, because what we don’t know—and can’t control—is often what defines our fate.
I’ve learned this through several ventures: a toy company in my 20s; a pioneering online platform for kids that helped pass the Children’s Privacy Protection Act; and a youth media company whose books and shows reached more than 65 languages and 100 countries. Each business demanded grit, adaptability, and a willingness to start over when things didn’t go as planned. But nothing tested me more than my 50s, when the greatest loss of my life forced me to rethink everything.
In 2014, I lost my sister Bridget to suicide. At the same time as I was managing her estate, I was also battling an autoimmune disease, caring for my parents, and trying to keep life stable for my six children and my husband, who was leading a new venture of his own. To cope, I immersed myself in research—more than 40 books on resilience, psychology, and health. The reading didn’t ease my grief, but it did spark two lightbulb moments. First, resilience determines entrepreneurial survival. The ability to ask for help, navigate adversity, reframe failure, and build networks of support is often the difference between failure and success. Second, food connects us—or isolates us. By changing my diet, I halted my disease, but I could no longer share meals with the people I loved. The solution had to be food that was allergen-free, free of inflammatory ingredients, and most importantly, delicious enough that everyone would want to eat it.
Those insights shaped the two missions that define my work today: teaching resilience and building Every Body Eat®. I believe the most important resilience skill is what I call “fearless asking,” the act of a clear, specific, time-bound ask. The inability to ask for help is linked not only to failed ventures but also to higher risks of isolation and even suicide. For the past decade, I’ve taught fearless asking to college students, watching them use the skill to launch companies, strengthen family relationships, and change their lives.
Fearless asking is also what sustained my co-founder, Nichole Wilson, and me when we launched Every Body Eat® in the middle of the pandemic. It helped us secure resources, build an allergen-free supply chain, and land distribution in natural grocers, airports, schools, hospitals, and eventually, Costco. Today, we produce snacks that everyone—regardless of dietary needs—can share.
Looking back, I don’t remember much of the year after Bridget’s death. What I do remember are the people—friends and strangers—who carried me through. My son started first grade just 48 hours after I gave her eulogy. I barely knew anyone at his school, and yet women I had never met reached out, included me, and pulled me out of my grief. Their kindness and willingness to show up became a lifeline. That is the essence of resilience. We don’t endure alone—we endure together.
Entrepreneurship is not a solitary act of genius. It is a collective act of endurance. And when resilience becomes the cornerstone—when we teach it, practice it, and use it to support one another through life’s dark times—ventures survive, families heal, and communities thrive.
Trish Thomas is the Co-Founder of Every Body Eat® and teaches Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University.