The first cut is the deepest.
In the name of full disclosure, and in an attempt to exorcize these ghosts, I must admit: I have failed.
The first time I started a company, I did it for good reasons: to work with a friend, and to help make his vision come true. So I dropped out of law school for the first time, and got to work. At some point along the way, my friend’s vision changed, and then our friendship soured, and finally, the whole thing exploded. We had a wonderful team helping us, both of our families invested money, institutions that never supported this kind of endeavor supported us. And then everything smashed to pieces.
Now I can see clearly that we were doomed from the start, because, sometimes, those good reasons are the worst reasons. But for years I let that failure fill me with shame, guilt and fear. I was terrified that I might hurt or disappoint someone, anyone, again.
The following months were a blur. I tried to keep my office going, and though the business was fine, I wasn’t. I was crushing under the weight of my feelings. I caved in, packed the whole thing up and tried to find closure. There was a lawsuit. Strangely, the person who got the most out of this venture, in terms of both cash and career experience, my employee #1, hates me to this day.
Heartbroken and defeated, I tried to move on with my life. I went back to college, and I went back to work as a producer. When the boulder of feelings became too much, I’d go out for a walk, at 3pm, or at 3am, it didn’t matter. The streets of Buenos Aires are my confidant, and into them I have poured my biggest joys and my biggest sorrows. At some point, I started running away. In trying to find some clarity, I started skydiving. I explored the jungle. I traveled across the Andes on horseback. I traversed the Ambargasta salt flats on the back of a motorcycle.
When your biggest fear is a fear of yourself, you can’t outrun it, and you can’t outjump it, not even in one hundred jumps, not even in three hundred jumps. So I stopped jumping and I stopped exploring. Whenever I started a new project, whether a conference or a festival or a startup, no matter how successful, I would slowly start to have deja vu. The fear that I might hurt people again, that I might let them down, would slowly seep into my soul, and creep under my skin. I could feel it, physically, like piercing nails, trapping me. And I would become paralyzed. And I would, simply, stop.
I hurt and disappointed people this way, too.
In the last few years, friends have asked me to join their company, or to manage their careers, or to lead their effort, repeatedly. All I could ever say was “no.” I should have been flattered and honored, but instead I was baffled. Me? Don’t you know me? I break everything good. I leave destruction in my path. You are all better off without me.
During the pandemic, I stopped going outside altogether. I lost myself. I lost my mind. Ironically, it was a friend asking, once more, to start something together, that broke the curse. He doesn’t know it, but he probably saved my life. He is one of the best humans I know, so when he talked to me, to the real me, to that part that I had tried to squash away, that part listened.
Fast forward one month, and I’m starting Privie. All these feelings that I had forgotten came rushing back, again. This time, I’m not running away. I’m older, and, hopefully, wiser. I want to be a good role model for my kids. I have a better support system. I want to be honest. And I want to be myself again, unafraid. These are the tools that, I hope, will help me so that, this time, it’s better. So that, this time, I’m better.
I am, finally, me.
