Last week I wrote about the wild rollercoaster I’ve been on over the last few months. Opening up publicly felt scary but important. I knew unexpected things would come of it. I had no idea the biggest thing would be learning how much the world suffers below the radar.
My heart goes out to the many people who have opened up to me about their life-threatening challenges past and present. It’s an honour to hear those stories and inspiring to know how people have overcome their challenges. I haven’t been able to get back to everyone yet so this post is in one part a reply to those people, in another part the next chapter in the story of what’s happened.
I left the story last week at the moment of peak hopelessness, sitting in front of my laptop, my dad in his hospital bed downstairs, my daughters waking to the world in the room next door and me facing the possibility that I might not be around for much longer.
I’m used to finding a way through hopelessness — you get good at that as a startup founder — but this was different. I sat staring at my laptop screen searching for a way through, realising that this situation was something I couldn’t rely on my usual path of strength to get through.
Rather than trying to clench my fists around the situation and steer it my way, I needed to let go and open up to something bigger than me.
As I sat there, two instincts came to me — that I somehow needed to be “all of me”, and I needed to be all of me together with all kinds of people. This felt incredibly powerful but scary. I’m so used to “having my shit together”, only showing my best side and going out to the world with an answer for everything.
In the heat of the moment I lurched from ‘tell no one’ to ‘tell everyone, immediately’. I reached out to a couple of our advisors to tell them that I wanted to be radically transparent and tell the world. They gently asked some questions which I knew meant that they thought it was a bad idea.
It was! And it didn’t take me long to find out. I started to write a mailer to send out to everyone I knew but it just didn’t feel right. I was trying to write both a plea for help and a reassurance that everything would be OK at the same time. Everything wasn’t OK — and any reassurance that it would be OK would be a lie. I’ve always been a terrible liar and the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach told me this wasn’t right.
I realised that first of all I needed to bring together a small group of people who it was OK to not be OK with, people I could say anything to. The ‘all of me’ was not OK, and the ‘all kinds of people’ were those I had been with on the many phases of my life’s journey. These were people who knew where I was at and I’d be OK to not be OK with.
And so I invited a handful of family, friends, investors and founders to a WhatsApp group. This has ended up being one of the most pivotal moments of my life.
What’s happened as a result of starting that group has unlocked the most wonderful miracles and changed my perspective on how we can be together in the world.
I’ll continue the story over the coming weeks. The only spoiler: I’m going to have a busy year of medical procedures but it looks like my daughters will get to have a dad and I’ll get to continue my life’s quest.
As I’ve learned over the past few weeks, asking for help is a powerful thing. Now we have a bit more clarity on my health, we’re picking up our fundraising activities for Endlesss again and most exciting of all we’re rolling out Clubs in a few weeks time.
If you want to support, we’ve just opened up an investment SPV. Learn more about what’s coming next and how you can be a part of it. Your investment will help us roll out “Clubs”, our new online spaces for communities to hang out, communicate and make music together.
I’m also going to start my own Club and you’re invited. Sign up for news about how to join ahead of time on this list.
