Here We Are Tour Diary: Leaps of Faith
Leaps of Faith
When I went through a breakup to start the New Year (what an awesome way to kick things off…), it’s safe to say I wasn’t in the best of mindsets. I was floating around, living out of a suitcase for a couple months trying my best to keep the CTC train on the tracks while dealing with grief. So, it’s safe to say I wasn’t in the ideal mindset to make big decisions, but I had to, nonetheless.
A couple of mentors told me that 2024 was the year to “scale”. I’d done a great job going 0→1, but now it was time to go from 1→10. What did they mean by “scale”? My clouded judgment took the scale advice as finally building out a team and doing more large events like we’d executed at NYC Climate Week (NYCW) before. It was time to put our platform to the test. I brought on a team and booked massive venues for NYCW, in Boston for the very first Tough Tech Week and in LA during LA Tech Week. 3 massive events in 3 cities over 3 weeks. This was going to be epic–something to be excited about and work towards while dealing with tectonic shifts in my personal life.
For those who haven’t put on events before–executing a 1,500+ person event is not for the faint of heart. It takes a massive upfront financial commitment and at least 4-6 months of preparation for an event of such magnitude–let alone 3 of them. Frankly, it’s very much an underappreciated art form. I made the decision with the best of intentions–to help the climate tech innovation community blossom further as temperatures rise and we approach an existential US election. I relied on the belief that by having altruistic motivations and putting in all I could that everything would work out, as it always had. Call it a leap of faith. I had time on my side, was single again and also onboarded a team to support–we could make magic happen.
By the time summer hit, it was clear climate tech was truly in a deep recession. Funding dried up, many startups were slashing budgets, becoming shells of themselves, and some even being forced to turn over the keys. Once reliable sponsors either deeply cut their sponsorship amounts or ghosted altogether. The general response was they didn’t care about exposure to thousands of people–they only wanted to be in curated rooms of founders and investors. Truth. What about corporates? Their sales cycles are long and they require a lot of massaging. Worse yet, I couldn’t accept money from some of the companies that were interested–cue fossil fuels. I sensed I was in deep trouble–analogous to seeing a train crash coming from a mile away and being tied down to the tracks. Regardless, I maintained hope that the leap of faith would pan out as long as I stayed true to our mission and worked my tail off. Meanwhile, my fund founder advisors told me it was still terrible timing to start raising a new fund–maybe next year would be better, they said. Great…so the ultimate monetary engine for our events needed to remain on ice…
Stressed from the status of my business and experiencing lingering deep sadness from personal struggles–not all I can list publicly–my summer Hoffman Process couldn’t come at a better time. I know I’ve touched upon Hoffman a couple of times–notably in the “Self-love” and “Here I Am” posts–but it bears repeating. I rediscovered my inner child, who had been suppressed by needing to grow up quickly. I felt love for myself and I experienced pure joy for the first time in recent memory. I found empathy for my parents and the way they treated me--they learned their behaviors from their parents, so on and so forth. Before beginning our final bashing session, I was randomly selected to place a candle in the middle of the room and state my personal intention to set the tone for the group. Tears streaming down my face, gently setting the candle on the ground, I told everybody that my family’s negative love patterns end here, today, with me. It was time to turn the page.
We all proceeded to bash and scream with full force yet again. Over the course of the week I had become known as the basher in chief. I stopped 30 minutes in. Exhausted and content, I surveyed the room with a smile on my face. I noticed members of our group who were more reserved in prior sessions letting go–screaming louder than before and beating the crap out of their pillows. During our final small group session, my new friends reflected that when I arrived at Hoffman it seemed like I didn’t want to be there (I didn’t), and that my transformation over the week was remarkable. They admired my vulnerability and said I was a lovable person–one group member even told me she thought I could lead a Hoffman group at this point.
Their feedback led to an awakening. I used to be an open and vulnerable person–people loved this about me, I remembered–but this aspect of myself had been suppressed over the past years for multiple reasons. One of which being that founders are taught to show strength and limit visible weakness–i.e. everything should look rosy on the outside while you’re constantly fighting fires on the inside. No more suppression, I decided. Perhaps one of my superpowers was inspiring others through honesty and vulnerability. I could clearly observe the positive impact of my true self on others over a few days. People were screaming and bashing like never before, experiencing a level of catharsis they might not have achieved otherwise. My energy was infectious. It was time to return to my true self in the real world and let my vulnerable freak flag fly.
Upon returning from Hoffman, I had a call scheduled with Sam Shapiro, Founder and CEO of Grounded RVs. During the first half of the call, I provided Sam with some fundraising advice (congratulations to Grounded, btw, for going on to raise $3.5m in funding :) Listening to my newfound inner child, I went on to share a vision I had when I started the Climate Tech Cocktails podcast a few years ago–to travel the country in a campervan and interview founders where they’re at.
Given Grounded builds electric campervans, could there be a there, there? Sam dug the idea and also the CTC mission. It just so happened they started lending out their prototype vehicle for marketing purposes. An environmental non-profit was using the vehicle until September 14th, 2024. Perfect! Our first event on the books was at NYC Climate Week on September 26th followed by Boston Tough Tech Week on October 8th. I pitched picking up the RV in Detroit on September 16th, making my way across the country, and returning the vehicle on the way to LA Tech Week. We’d hit up smaller, underappreciated cities in the US and Canada–providing a much needed spotlight for entrepreneurs and incubators. “Why don’t you sleep on it?” Sam asked. “No need. This must be fate. YOLO,” I quickly replied. If CTC was going down because of the exposure to the 3 massive, underfunded events, it might as well be with an electric RV blaze of glory. And so I took another leap of faith, this time powered by my open-hearted inner child.
After sleeping on it, I was filled with equal amounts of excitement for the journey ahead and trepidation over how I was going to accomplish such a feat with limited time and resources. I was set to pick up the electric RV in less than two months and I had to keep our shoestring team of contractors focused on the larger events. The rest of the tour needed to rest on my shoulders. I brought on a contractor to help with sponsorship sales for the larger events and began mapping out my electric RV (ERV) itinerary. I had to move, and move quickly.
