What if starting something new in your STEM career is less risky than staying stuck in a path that no longer fits?
🔍 What You’ll Learn:
When STEM professionals think about career change, entrepreneurship, or starting something on the side, we often treat it like a one-way door.
As if trying means burning the whole house down.
But after interviewing multiple STEM founders, one pattern keeps coming up: many of us already have a safety net. Not a perfect one. Not a magical one. But a real one, built from our skills, experience, networks, adaptability, and ability to get another job if we need to.
In this solo episode, I unpack what founders like Shilpa Agarwal, Dr. Lorien Parker, Natalie Chapman, Catherine O Mahony, Viv Allen, Sue Pillans, Cassie Leonard and others teach us about taking risks without being reckless.
You’ll learn:
• Why your STEM skills may give you more fallback options than you think
• How founders use timeframes, milestones, and financial boundaries to make risk manageable
• Why entrepreneurship does not need to replace your whole income from day one
• How to think about money honestly without letting fear make every decision
• Why “I haven’t made it yet” is often a moving target, not a useful rule
• How to give yourself permission to test an idea before waiting for everyone else to approve it
Listen to this episode if you have an idea, a side project, or a career move sitting in the “too risky” basket, and you need a more practical way to think about what the real risk is.
🧠About This Solo Episode:
This is a reflective takeaway episode from Multiple Hats, where I pull one theme from multiple founder conversations and ask what it means for STEM professionals designing their own path.
This one is about the safety net we often forget we already have. It is not about pretending money does not matter. It does. Annoyingly, very much.
But it is about asking better questions:
What can I test?
What is my fallback?
What is the timeframe?
What money can I touch, and what is off limits?
And what might it cost me if I never try?
đź“Ś Episode Highlights:
00:00 The idea that stuck after Shilpa Agarwal’s interview
01:45 Why STEM professionals often underestimate their own safety net
02:30 Risk is not just about courage, it is about scaffolding
03:20 Shilpa’s three-year promise to keep showing up
04:00 Dr. Lorien Parker on milestones, boundaries, and not touching home money
06:00 Natalie Chapman on getting her first client through a former boss
07:30 Catherine O Mahony on leaving well and turning trust into opportunity
08:30 Viv Allen on staying lean and building through word of mouth
09:30 Sue Pillans on the financial reality of self-employment
11:30 Why life stage changes your risk profile
12:00 Cassie Leonard on accepting a lower income for a more aligned life
13:30 Shilpa Agarwal on family values, spending, and living within the experiment
14:20 The mistake of pretending money does not matter
15:00 The bigger mistake of letting money fear stop you completely
15:40 What Sue Pillans asks: what is the worst that can happen?
16:00 Shilpa’s advice to serve the person in front of you
17:30 Why you do not need permission from your peers, manager, parents, or LinkedIn network
20:00 The “I haven’t made it yet” trap
21:00 Why enough might be today, not some future milestone
đź”— Resources Mentioned:
• Shilpa Agarwal, founder of ClinEQ Training and Chapter One Publishers
• Dr. Lorien Parker, founder of SciencePlay Kids
• Natalie Chapman, founder of gemaker
• Catherine O Mahony, founder of On Q Recruitment
• Viv Allen, founder of Vivacity Health
• Sue Pillans, graphic recorder and founder of Dr Suzie Starfish
• Cassie Leonard, aerospace engineer turned author, coach and founder
🤔 Reflection Time: