In episode 24 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen shares key insights from her upcoming book Risk Worthy. — In this episode, Laurie breaks down one of the core ideas from Risk Worthy: your Best Possible Future — and why it’s the missing filter most people need when making high-stakes decisions.

You’ll learn the difference between Best Self and Best Possible Future: Best Self is about the thoughts, energy, and character you bring into the world, while Best Possible Future is about the outcomes and life vision you’re building toward — your “vision board fulfilled.” Laurie explains how your Best Possible Future helps you evaluate risk through a simple, grounding question: even with uncertainty, does this move me closer to my long-term vision?

From there, she connects the concept to real decisions with real consequences — building a life-changing product, investing $100K into a startup, or choosing the right business partner — and introduces the idea of qualitative ROI: when a decision is aligned with your Best Self and Best Possible Future, you can trust that the logistics and numbers tend to resolve over a long enough horizon.

Finally, Laurie challenges the timeline assumptions behind your goals, drawing from Peter Thiel’s “Why can’t you do this in 6 months?” and Benjamin Hardy’s argument for compressing timelines to force focus, simplification, and 80/20 thinking. The episode closes with a powerful question: Is your Best Possible Future ten years away — or six months away? And what would change if you had to find out?

Key themes: Best Possible Future framework, qualitative ROI, risk-worthiness, 10x vs 10-year thinking, timeline compression, simplifying for vertical progress, decision-making under uncertainty.

QUOTES

• "The question that both Peter Thiel and Benjamin Hardy lead me to ask is: is our best possible future 10 years away or is it 6 months away? Cutting the time leads to more honest and more critical assessments about achieving the best possible future." - Laurie Chen

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Laurie Chen

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/

WEBSITES

Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/

Advanced CFO: https://www.advancedcfo.co/

Built By Margin: https://www.builtbymargin.com/