Decoding the invisible rules that almost derailed my 8-figure exit
There I was, standing outside a town office building, clinging to a presentation I spent a few weeks perfect. My hands are clammy. My heart is racing. In just a few minutes, I want to pierce my vision for an Ai Ai-Power Research platform with a power in a classroom of executives who probably have a dozen other meetings that day.
In return, I realized that the moment was not just about the landing of a potential client. It's about finding the validation that is my idea – and by expanding, I – I deserve to take space in the business world.
When refusal becomes redirect
I might not have entered that boardroom if it wasn't for Jay Goldman. When I first shared my vision for bringing anthropological research into corporate decision -making, Jay could nod politely and move on to his day. Instead, he really listened. He connected me to his CEO back then, who then offered me the opportunity to build their board – an forbidden opportunity for someone with just one idea and decision.
The meeting itself is nothing but good. The team carefully engages, asking wise questions and giving my presentation their true attention. Their feedback is measured and considered. While eventually they decided my solution was incorrectly fit for their current direction, they took the time to acknowledge the merit in my approach.
“Your idea has real potential,” they said. “It may not be aligned with our focus today, but there is definitely something important here that is worth chasing.”
These words of verification, derived from seasoned executives who have no obligation to encourage me, have become the foundation for what will eventually grow in motivbase and lead a 10x ARR exit year later.
What makes the difference? Why is this moment of redirecting become fuel than a full stop?
Here's what I understand after years of studying human behavior as an anthropologist and lifestyle of businessman Rollercoaster: Our ideas about success are not really ourselves.
We do not mean to absorb messages about who has the right to succeed and how that success should happen. I call “invisible policies” – unlucky codes that quietly determine what paths are considered legitimate.
For me and my co-founder Jason Partridge, we internalized the belief that legitimate startups require large funds, fancy offices, and institutional backing. We can't imagine bootstrapping because that path does not exist in our “real” entrepreneurship model.
It took another pivotal conversation – this time with Harvey Carroll, who was on the IPG mediabrands at that time – to challenge the limiting belief. While we were busy explaining how we needed financial backbone to launch properly, Harvey cut off our assumptions with simple clarity: “What prevents you from doing this?
It was as if something suddenly gave me the glasses that expressed hidden writing on a wall that I had stared for for many years.
The line between defeat and discovery
It brings me to what I believe is the critical point of inflection on any trader travel: the fine line between letting the refusal to define you and let it be refined.
The difference is not in denial itself. This is if you can recognize that your reaction to that refusal is to be filmed by unseen policies you accidentally adopted.
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When someone says “it won't work,” do they really say it's impossible, or is it just not fit to the conventional success template?
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When you feel unqualified, is it because of your real shortage, or because you do not match the profile of who “should” succeed in your farm?
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When do you hesitate to start without a backward back, because you really need it, or because you are conditioned to believe that is the only legitimate path?
The most deep perspective from my journey was not learning to restore from refusal-it recognized how many of my limits were imposed on my own because I had internal policies created by and for a system designed to work for 1%, not the 99% of entrepreneurs.
Breaking Rules You never know that exists
The day after that conversation with Harvey, my co-founder and I called our lawyers to include. Not because we suddenly had a fund or a clear roadmap, but because we finally had permission – from ourselves – to try.
We decided to bootstrap what to eventually become motivbase, even if it opposed everything we thought needed for “legitimate” success. We choose sustainable growth in hypergrowth, focusing on developing something significant than chasing vanity metrics.
It's not easy. We do not have a safety net of venture capital. But what we got couldn't change: the freedom to build a business that aligned with our values rather than external expectations.
Now, as I work with the founders at different stages of building their businesses, I see the same patterns playing. The brilliant entrepreneurs who doubt themselves are not because they lack the ability, but because they do not fit the mold of who “should” succeed.
My message to them is the same message that I wanted to understand earlier: the strongest decision you make is not what starts with the business – it chooses which policies to follow and which one to write.
When you see the unlucky rulebook that quietly guides your decisions, you can now make conscious -people options about your path forward. You can develop success on your terms, not the template of someone else.
And sometimes, all it takes is someone – like Jay or Harvey is for me – who believes you are enough to help you see the past invisible boundaries. Their good in their time, their willingness to listen, and their honest feedback not only open the doors -they helped me see that rejection was not always about the merit of your idea, but about how it fits into a system developed for a very certain kind of success.
As I work in my upcoming book, “Mastering the Invisible Rulebook,” I keep reminding how these hidden dynamic shapes are not only individual races but whole industries-determining who will get the funds, whose ideas are gaining green, and what kinds of companies have evolved.
Traveling from the nervous pitch to exit is not just about building a company. It is about recognizing that success is not a one-size-fits-all destination with a prescribed path. It is about having the courage to ask the rules and, if necessary, write new ones.
What is the unseen rule that you have internalized that your vision may limit what is possible? When do you actually redeem the rejection towards something that is better aligned with your true path?
I want to hear your stories as I continue to share mine.
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