The Yellow Phone
It was 35 years ago. The yellow phone rang. It was the end of happiness.
They say I cried for 24 hours and then slept for 48. When I woke up I was devastated that he was gone but grateful that she made it back. I vowed to protect her from that kind of pain forever.
The yellow phone is not a metaphor. It was literally a giant, yellow, rotary telephone in our kitchen in 1984.
12 years after the end of happiness:
My buddies and I went on a white water rafting trip after high school graduation. While rafting, a father of two fell off the boat and died. The tour guide completely panicked and the other adults consoled the man’s children. My friends and I went to get the body. The man’s foot was stuck between two rocks in Class III rapids. We tied ropes to trees and pulled ourselves to the center of the river. Using carabiners and straps we managed to pull his body out. One thing I noticed throughout the entire experience was that I did not panic. My mind was clear and I went straight into action. I thought I would have had some sort of post traumatic stress after, but I didn’t.
17 years after the end of happiness:
September 11, 2001. I looked out my apartment window and saw the second plane crash into the second tower. I ran to my phone and called my sister to get out of downtown immediately but phones weren’t working. Less than an hour later the south tower fell. My sister ran up town directly to my apartment. She was shaking and was covered in dust and blood. I wiped off the dust and I wiped off the blood but I didn’t see any cuts on her. Wait, what? But I didn’t freak out. I was calm, cool, and collected. Several other friends and family made their way to my home that morning as well.
23 years after the end of happiness:
I quit my dream job to start a company. I don’t know exactly why I did it but my entrepreneurial journey ended up lasting 10 years and spanned three startups. All the ups and downs of being a startup founder took a major toll on me every single day. My feelings were constantly hurt and my self doubt and inner critic were out of control. But what did my investors, team mates, and family see? Calm, cool, and collected.
28 years after the end of happiness:
My first startup was going through an acquisition. It had been six years of hard work and it was coming in for a soft landing. There was one more week of lawyers, contracts, and shareholder calls left before closing. Then the phone rang and she was gone.
Her passing was peaceful. Her funeral was one of the most important moments of my life. I was allowed to honor her in a normal, present and non tragic way. It was the best gift she ever gave me. I was very sad and I mourned, but I didn’t cry. My wife and parents urged me to stop being “strong for everyone else.” Strong? Everyone else? I am not sure what mask I put on in 1984 but it definitely did not reflect what was going on inside of me.
30 years after the end of happiness:
My second startup was about to fail. I started the company with a clear hypothesis and transparent performance metrics that weren’t met. Shutting down the company was a straightforward decision that my investors supported. Despite the obvious data driven answer, I wanted to give it some more thought.
I decided to participate in a CEO Bootcamp with a coach named Jerry Colonna. These camps are four day retreats to remote and beautiful locations. Jerry and his team do an amazing job of creating a safe space for startup founders to share their feelings. People started crying the first night. I made it to day three.
Another founder at the bootcamp was talking about her challenges with fertility. My wife and I struggled with that for years and I wanted to share our story. I thought I was going to speak about the awful and expensive IVF procedures or the multiple and heartbreaking miscarriages. Instead, the story of November 1, 1984 came out. And it came out with details that I had never spoken before, not even to myself. I had a total breakdown in front of 12 strangers and cried three decades of tears in one sitting.
At that moment I realized that I was suffering from a deep depression.
I spent the next few years in a darkness that I had never experienced before. Maybe it was inflicted by my childhood trauma. Maybe it was the cost of being a startup founder. Whatever it was, it was very real and I was very sick. A combination of therapy, medication, and support from friends and family over many years eventually healed me.
If any of this resonates with you, please seek help. Mental illness is very real and very dangerous. If you are a founder who jokes about “the roller coaster of #StartupLife” but you don’t feel safe, please talk to someone. Talk to your therapist, talk to your family, talk to me.
Today:
What happened when I was six was unimaginable. The world has a very mean way of shitting on all of us and unfortunately for many it happens at a young age. “The end of happiness” plays a foundational role in how life reveals itself to me.
It is not that I am incapable of feeling happy. In fact, over the last three years there have been multiple times when I have told my wife “this moment is literally the happiest I have ever felt.” I get chills every time I say it. It is amazing to feel happiness after suffering from depression. A year ago, our son invented “the triple hug.” He grabs his mom and then calls for me and head locks the both of us. There is literally no better feeling in the world, but…
As soon as I have any feeling of happiness, I expect the yellow phone to ring. It doesn’t just happen at peak moments like a triple hug. It also happens when I experience a nice breeze, a beautiful sunset, or a meaningful conversation.
Every night I practice gratitude meditation. I start with gratitude for my wife and all of her love. I then offer gratitude for our son and the joy he brings me. And usually by the third deep breath and gratitude for my family, friends, and colleagues, I feel my stomach sink. Is the world going to collapse again?
It is difficult to live a normal life when you constantly expect the worst to happen, especially when the best just happened. It pains me deeply that I can’t truly experience happiness without experiencing worry at the same time. Writing this makes me feel somewhat liberated but simultaneously I pray that our son can escape the world’s meanness and be free of mental illness.
I can’t in good conscience end this blog post without a metaphor. And while I didn’t plan it, “The Yellow Phone” is the perfect metaphor. I realized five years ago when I went on a journey to properly grieve my childhood trauma that the yellow phone never stopped ringing for me and it probably never will.
In his book, Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, Jerry writes about the “Loyal Soldier.” It is a concept in psychology based on Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who defended his motherland on a remote Pacific island for 30 years after World War II ended. Jerry writes “All Loyal Soldiers then have one basic task: to keep us safe from the wars that raged in our childhood.”
The Yellow Phone is my Loyal Soldier. It has been 35 years since it started ringing and it took me until now to recognize it. I wish it could stop but I know it can’t and I know that one day I will need to answer it again. At this point, all I can do is thank the yellow phone for it’s hard work over the years and for giving me this strength of staying calm, cool and collected (at least on the outside) during challenging times. Perhaps it is time to upgrade the yellow phone to 5G.
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