Forged From Fire

On a random day and time in December 2022, my heart rate was 203 beats per minute. My vision was blurred. My face and hands were dripping with sweat. My shirt, shorts, and socks were completely drenched. I couldn’t focus. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if that happened at the end of a 25-mile cycling time trial. The problem was that I was at home, by myself, sitting on the couch, minding my business. In a matter of minutes, I was in the midst of an all-out anxiety or panic attack. I have no idea which one because it never happened before and hasn’t happened since. Life was coming at me fast and my body responded accordingly. My dad was battling advanced Alzheimer’s, while Moms was fighting two types of cancer. On top of that, talks with private equity firms about a potential acquisition of our company ended unsuccessfully. Within four months, several team members resigned from the company. I was also struggling with my faith, and I had no idea if the next steps that we planned to take to grow the company were going to work. The only things that kept me even remotely sane were my wife, three kids, and my three bicycles (Rocket, Storm, and Noir). Yes, I named them. Don’t judge me. Let me be great. Life and entrepreneurship are not for the weak. Leading yourself, others, or a company requires significant personal and professional investment. There will be major sacrifices. You will lose friends and fight battles that were non-existent in times past. You will question the integrity honesty, decency, and virtue of others while questioning your own integrity, honesty, decency, and virtue. One day you will feel like you are on the top of a mountain, while the next day you will feel like you are in the deepest of valleys. If you don’t know yourself, lack vision, resilience, patience, or persistence, do something else. If you are unable to hear the whispers because of the deafening screams inside of your own mind (or from others), reconsider jumping into the entrepreneurship waters. When I decided to take the plunge into uncharted territory, I had no idea what to expect or accept from others. I was a Project Leader for a mid-sized tech company and then a Vice President of a start-up tech company prior to co-founding my own. The challenges associated with being an influencer in a company are not even in the same stratosphere as creating an organization, convincing people to see your vision and join the mission, growing it, and leading it. I learned very quickly that starting a company is easy. Growing it is hard. Connecting with people, sharing a vision, handling conflict, encouraging others, and believing in yourself are not as easy as it sounds, especially when you realize that you don’t control anything…at all. The one thing that I believe is an absolute truism is that if you have aspirations to play the life game well and lead others, you have to know that it requires everything from you and offers no guarantees in return. Long days, short nights, uncertainty, confusion, self-doubt, and apprehension are all a part of the journey. There are no do overs. You have to learn, reflect, and pivot while in action. If you are unable to make swift changes while in action, it is certainly necessary to offer considered thought on the chosen modality of operation and determine how to proceed when similar situations arise in the future, which they most assuredly will. Although we sold our company for an amount that only a very small percentage of small businesses in the U.S. eclipse (according to this thing that we call the Internet), I remain in the midst of my entrepreneurship and leadership journey. And nope, I’m not telling you how much. You’re not about to ask me to buy you all the brand new Jordans and other luxury goods. I’m goodt :). I wrote this story from my personal vantage point. My perspectives are my perspectives. Others might feel different, but I cannot tell their stories with any level of depth or clarity. I can only tell my story. The emotions that you will feel are real. As I write this, I know that I will leave pieces of me on these pages. I am fine with that. I certainly left pieces of me with the company. I am fine with that as well. I chose that journey and learned more in the six plus years that I served as Co-Founder and CEO than I learned during the previous 20 years. The beauty and majesty of this story is that I'm no different from you or anyone else. My story is no different. My journey hasn't been overly marred by tragic situations or calamitous challenges. The situations that I have encountered are most certainly first world problems. I know that. I just refuse to die with a story inside of me. My grandma mandated that I tell as many stories as I can before my clock ticks to zero. I am hopeful that you can learn from my successes and failures as a human, leader, and entrepreneur. I hope that you are able to create a space for yourself and others to offer something to life that matters. The opportunities that we have to live lives worth living and to be leaders worthy of following should not be taken for granted. None of us should want to only exist, learn nothing, take from others, offer minimal value, and leave. It doesn’t make sense. At least it doesn’t make sense to me. We should want to leave pieces of ourselves behind and have nothing in the gas tank when we hopefully hear the beautiful words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant…well done.”