‘Fix It—or Go Surfing’: Jessica Lessin on What She’d Tell Her Younger Self

Ten years ago, almost to the day, my husband Sam took a video of me curled up in bed, convinced I had food poisoning. I was so nauseous, I felt like I couldn’t move.

It turned out it was just nerves.

I had just told my parents I was going to leave a plum reporting job at The Wall Street Journal to start something new. It was the moment my decision to become a startup founder and to launch The Information became really real.

Sam showed me the picture a week ago (finally something useful came out of his record-everything habit!), and it got me thinking: What would I tell that young woman curled up in bed about what lay in store for her? How would I advise that less experienced version of me—and any other startup founder or business leader who feels paralyzed by a big professional risk?