It was at the turn of the century when I embarked on my first serious professional venture. A partnership with a soulmate, jumping headfirst and starting a company that would leave an unforgettable mark on my life, forever. But the equation, I see it clearly now, started with a negative sign.
Not financially — we had nothing, fresh out of university, that's common ground. I mean something deeper. The very first thought I attached to the endeavour was based on doubt and fear.
Am I good enough? What chances do we have to make it?
That was the seed I, or someone, something else planted in me. Was the seed from this life, or was it carried over as a karmic quantum entanglement from previous rounds of experience — I don't know for sure. I have some ideas, though. But I know that the tree grew from that seed. And it grew tall and mighty, and crooked at the same time.
Decades of extraordinary results followed. Global milestones. Paradigm shifts, technological breakthroughs, and creative marvels that the competition envied us for. International events across three continents. Teams of brilliant people delivering work that moved audiences, shifted perspectives, won recognition and respect from both the industry and leaders, senior and more experienced than we were.
It looked like a symphony, on the outside.
Inside, it sounded like a broken instrument being forced to play, at all costs.
I pushed. I gripped. I tensed every muscle, rowing upstream, against the current, terrified that if I let go for a second, the whole thing would collapse.
I didn't dance through those years.
I was in constant anxiety. Cortisol. Financial cliffs. Adrenaline. The vertigo of almost-failing, over and over. The fight-or-flight switch was on fight mode, indefinitely, without a glimpse of hope that it would get better. Surviving the 2008 crisis. Surviving the 2020 pandemic. Delivering stellar work while my nervous system, overloaded with everything but happy-go-lucky hormones, screamed that the next disaster was one invoice away.
My mind, in Chief Torturer mode, masked this as resilience. True grit, reserved only for the top dogs, the bravest of the pack. I decided it was the price of doing great work, and that being the wartime Chief was a prestige. Narcissism flourished, as did my Ego. A vicious cycle of inflating values and perception, much like any other human-fuelled bubble — dotcom, AI, EVs, rare minerals, and whatever comes next historically.
Living outside-in, it was easy to believe. But it wasn't any of those things.
It was a virus in the code.
The good part of living through such experiences is the wake-up call they offer.
The best parts are the sober mornings that come after. The times when the fight turns into a dance.
The first thought is the first note. It sets the key. It determines whether the melody that follows will be harmonious or dissonant.
And my opening tone was the power chord of fear, insecurity, and doubt.
Every decision I made was tuned to that frequency. Every hire, every pitch, every sleepless night, every relationship — all of it vibrating at the frequency of "Am I good enough? Will we make it?"
The results of such a matrix and patterns that run at the deepest kernels of the being are real. Very real. Regardless of being out of tune, time is ticking, models expand, and we start to stack fear upon fear, misaligned keys, one onto another. It becomes a cacophony, anything but a harmonious, layered, well-orchestrated and conducted tune.
The time in silence brings clarity, opening up the inner space to gift us a truth. I know this because I have heard the other kind of melody.
When I stepped out of the company, I had nothing left to give. I was empty. Burned to ash. I no longer believed in the concepts and ideas that got us through for so long. I did not believe in my capacity to hold onto an idea and lead, and I could not live with myself if I continued to do so, misleading others. And in that emptiness — endless silence after the tension and release of the last dissonant chord — something else began to play.
Quietly, at first. A note I didn't recognise because I had never heard it in all those years of working.
Ease.
Not laziness. Not passivity. Ease. The feeling of a sailboat catching the wind and moving without resistance. Full sails forward, supported by something larger than idea, strategy or willpower.
I started writing. Words came without force. I started serving from the heart, guiding, advising. Not driven by money, for the joy of seeing others feel better, thriving. Conversations opened doors I didn't know existed. People appeared at the right moment. Opportunities arrived without cold emails or pitch decks.
Not because the universe owed me something, my life was the same, except that nothing felt the same again. The frequency changed, and I've begun vibrating at my home base range.
The first thought was no longer fear. It was a belief. And gratitude. Trust that there is a plan, after all. That only after renouncing the idea of control, after releasing myself of this burden on my back, only then did I find peace. Calmness.
And everything downstream shifted with it.
And the idea is not to tell you that positive thinking fixes everything. Ups and downs are part of just about any stream. The point is to share the knowledge and experience of spending the better part of my career proving that a single negative thought—even when paired with talent, discipline, and genuine love for the work—will produce results that cost more than they're worth. Always.
Our achievements were real, coming at the price of my peace. My presence with a family. One organ less in my body.
My ability to feel joy in the thing I was building.
It was an early autumn morning when one of my dearest friends reached out. "A coffee? I feel like I have to talk to you."
We met at a local coffee shop, overlooking the park. "I feel like this leaf", she said. "Falling off the branch." She had everything. Amazing family, stability, and she was blazingly rising through the corporate ranks. "This dream I had, I'm floating, no control over my body".
I listened.
I didn't ask her about her strategy, her KPIs or the latest promotion in the row.
"And I got the message, I need to cut the ties", she continued.
"Which Saint delivered you these words?" I asked.
"How did you know?"
"A guess", I said calmly.
And we talked on. I served her, attentive to the signals of our conversation, probing towards uncovering her first thought — her treasure trove, the spring of youth, the Holy Grail, the encrypted key that unlocks the Path. A thought.
The first thought, upon her kingdom lay bare.
Her force, the one that got her moving mountains, was a vibration of dependence. She deeply felt she depended on the matter, her surroundings — without it, all would be lost. That was the seed. And, like so many of us, she had built her life around it, without ever seeing it.
The note that started her melody.
And she was brave to start working on that opening note. If not, she would keep playing the same dissonant song — louder, faster, more impressively — but out of tune all the same.
The change is neither easy nor simple. Reward, though, it's well worth it.
Observe the landscape. See it for what it is, not what you wish it were. Immerse yourself in the context. Don't run from it. Sit with it. Let it speak.
Harmonise the polarities, they are yours to play with. Feel them as you feel every day and every night of your life. The success and the suffering. The gratitude and the grief. The person you were and the one you are becoming.
Become coherence, a singular force that flows like a melody.
A happy tune.
To the three women whose courage made this story real.