I met a man who supposedly held PhDs both in chemistry and mathematics who invented the curse of garlic bread from Olive Garden. He apparently holds the patent on the optimal oil to salt ratio necessary to induce salivation in a consumer. He also invented Baked Lays. Apparently this man has worked with Steve Jobs and Jerry Bruckheimer on projects before and seems to not have skipped out on many opportunities in life. He has started and successfully sold 9 ventures and is now an educator and activist for entrepreneurship.

Despite his grandeur, I lost my patience with him. I do not condone condescension at any level. This man attempted to break me, and he succeeded. The following shows how you accomplished this:

He was asked by a friend of his to lecture to budding entrepreneurs about the struggle of making it. He began his monologue with self-proclaimed pedagogical benchmarks of innovation such as the 3 C’s of creativity: Contacts, Connections, Context. Contacts are the people or things that can be Connected within a given Contextual situation to generate new and feasible ideas. I found this to be a clear explanation of the concept of the “connecting the dots” phenomenon that entrepreneurs are often credited with having the ability to do. He then introduced the concept that we had to enter a state of meta-existence in which we again find ourselves in a triangle of Being, Doing, and Having. His observation was that the vast majority of people spend their lives sulking in what they are Doing and complain about their lack of Having, when their greatest obstacle to happiness is in changing who they are Being.

He then had everyone in the room pitch their companies to him. This man was looking to test our ability to withstand criticism. He cut me off in mid-pitch and negated our assumptions about our target market. After asking for his claims of a corrected set of assumptions, he began to boast about his marketing experience as justification… I lost my cool. It had been a long couple of months figuring out our team dynamic, making tough sacrifices to effectively direct the company, and finally validating our target market. I did not have enough energy to put up with this guy’s criticism, so I lost my temper and interjected his pompous monologue. I animatedly defended our assumptions about our target market with data and attempted to convince the man that his “corrected” assumptions were invalid and whimsical in nature. I continued to express that our learnings had brought us to a product that was tailored to our target demographic to which he simply replied “I am impressed by your intact self-esteem”. As a response, I allowed myself to become enraged.

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After further reflection, I realized that my composure had been compromised for the first time in a long time. By attempting to break me, this seasoned entrepreneur pulled my strings to find that I am entirely invested in my company and its future. He told me that it was better for me to recognize the value of my company now while millions were not on the line rather than when VCs are crowded around my table beating down the valuation of my business.

It’s extraordinarily difficult for me to distinguish my personal identity from that of my company and vision; although it feels like an entirely vulnerable and dangerous state of being, this absolute obsession drives me to grow beyond my old self.