Jump Without the Parachute: Bobby Petras on Building From Nothing
Entrepreneurship · From Student of the Game
Jump Without the Parachute: Bobby Petras on Building From Nothing
Most people see the nice car, the 65 communities, the family that does life and business together, and they assume it was always like that. They didn't see the dirt-basement bedroom with a rat on the floor. They didn't see the cashed-in 401k, the refinanced house, or the furniture sold off to keep a young company alive. On this episode of Student of the Game, host Brad Noll sits down with his friend Bobby Petras, owner of Priority Life Care and Mad Apple CrossFit Gym, to trace the full arc of a story that looks like overnight success only if you skip the first 17 years.
From River Rat to Fort Wayne
Bobby grew up in Toronto, Ohio, a town of about 6,000 people where Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania meet on the river. The locals are called River Rats, a nickname handed down by rival schools. Almost everyone's parents worked in the mill, including his own. Like a lot of small-town kids, Bobby played everything: football, baseball, basketball, track. That love of competition carried him through college and eventually to Fort Wayne, where he played arena football for the Fort Wayne Freedom.
"When I came to Fort Wayne, I was like, this place is great," Bobby says. "It felt like a small town, but to me had like everything that I needed." Brad, who left a 4,000-person Michigan town to play basketball in Fort Wayne, knows the feeling. It's part of what bonded the two men long before this conversation, along with kids in sports and a shared respect for the work behind the win.
“You have to jump out of the plane without the parachute, 'cause if you have a parachute when you're starting a business, you're prepared to fail.”
Bobby Petras
The Thanksgiving That Started a Company
Priority Life Care began at a Thanksgiving dinner about 17 years ago. Bobby's sister, a banker who financed senior housing deals, came home during the 2008 financial crisis with a case of wine, an easel, an org chart, and a business plan. She'd seen the numbers from the inside, and she had a pitch: everyone quits their jobs and starts an assisted living management company together. His wife Brandy was a social worker. His mom had been an administrator. Bobby was the salesman. His sister was finance.
The cheers came easy. The follow-through did not. One by one, the family either quit or got fired. Bobby got fired, and three weeks later found out Brandy was pregnant with their first daughter. They sold furniture, moved in with in-laws, and tried to short-sell a house worth less than they paid for it. It's the part of the story that doesn't fit on a highlight reel, and it's exactly the part Brad wanted listeners to hear.
Bobby's takeaway has become his advice to young people chasing a dream: "If you have a plan, you have to jump out of the plane without the parachute." His reasoning is blunt. A backup plan is just a rehearsal for failure. Brad called it the same thing he tells people: you have to burn the ships.
Today, by Bobby's last count, Priority Life Care has more than 3,700 employees and 65 communities across 13 or 14 states, with another 30 communities being explored.
Three Rules and a Whole Lot of Empathy
Ask Bobby about fundamentals and he doesn't overcomplicate it. The business runs on three rules: talk, listen, and don't be an asshole. Over-communicate with everyone from corporate staff to residents and their families. Truly listen, the way he did when his CFO simply needed to vent for 30 seconds before getting to the solution. And carry yourself with decency, because "you can be very successful in this world and not be an asshole doing it."
Underneath all three sits empathy. As Bobby points out, nobody wants to end up in assisted living. Every resident arrived because of a qualifying event: a fall, a broken hip, a sick spouse. "We have to have an extreme amount of empathy to make that transition easier and then to make their lives better while they're there." Brad connected it to one of his own company's core values at Noll Real Estate: serve others. In real estate, those same lifestyle changes show up as families taking the keys from mom and dad. The empathy is the business.
Take Care of Yourself First
For Bobby, daily discipline traces straight back to being an athlete. He was, in his own words, the kid who loved practice more than the games. One coach's line stuck with him for life: "Just because we're going half go doesn't mean you're half ass."
These days that shows up at 5:30 in the morning, with a sauna, a cold plunge, a hot tub, and lately some Duolingo Spanish. The point isn't the routine itself, it's the principle behind it. He compares it to the oxygen mask on an airplane: put yours on first, because you can't help anyone if you're not well. "Being obsessive about being healthy is a direct correlation to being successful in business," he says.
The Locker Room at 44
One of the most striking chapters is Bobby's attempt, two years ago, to finally play college basketball, a regret he'd carried since choosing football. He trained at 5 a.m., shot countless reps, and battled Achilles tendonosis along the way. Then an eligibility technicality ended the dream before the first scrimmage. He could have sued to play, but it would have risked the team, so he walked away.
What he gained was bigger than two points on a stat sheet. He landed in a locker room with 18- and 19-year-olds and rediscovered camaraderie, conflict resolution, and humility. For the first time in his life he was arguably the worst player on the team, the biggest liability, working his tail off anyway. Two of those young men, Isaiah and Damari, are now like family. And in a non-sanctioned summer tournament, he did get his game, scoring eight points and going two for two from three.
Legacy, Family, and Giving People Their Flowers
Bobby and Brandy run their nonprofit, the Bobby and Brandy Petras Foundation, focused on underprivileged youth through sports, a nod to the kid who once painted ratty shoes white so no one would notice. He's open with his kids that the family is well off but they are not, that everything still has to be earned. His real measure of winning is simple: "If my kids don't think I'm a great dad, that would be devastating."
When Brad asked who deserved his flowers, Bobby named his dad, a mill worker who never said no to a catch in the yard and once pulled the car over to tell a doubting eighth-grader to aim higher than the local legend. "All you need is your opportunity," his dad told him. That belief turned into a starting quarterback job, a defensive player of the year award, and a mindset Bobby now passes down.
Hard work pays off. HWPO. It's literally the name of his group text with Isaiah and Damari, and it might be the cleanest summary of this entire conversation.
▶ Listen to the full episode
Family, Fitness and Lighting the Way in Senior Care with Bobby Petras, on Student of the Game.
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