#010 - I Lost €50 Million and the Woman I Loved. I Found Who I Am.

The most important things I know, I learned by losing.

Not by winning. Not by building. Not by achieving.

By losing.

Twice I've been crushed by loss. Once by love. Once by money.

Both taught me the same lesson.

The Woman

I couldn't breathe around her. Not because of desire—though there was plenty of that. Because of fear.

Fear she would leave. Fear, I wasn't enough. Fear that the connection I felt was all in my head.

She was beautiful. Fun. Unpredictable.

A bit like my mother, so I loved her even more.

I know how that sounds now.

I believed I had to earn love through perfect performance.

She gave me infinite opportunities to try.

The End

When it ended, I was destroyed.

Not heartbroken. Destroyed.

I had built my entire identity around being the person she needed. The problem solver. The steady one. The man who could handle her chaos.

Without her, I didn't know who I was.

So I did what you do when you hit bottom. I started rebuilding.

Therapy. Every week. No shortcuts.

The gym. Every day. I built my body because I couldn't build anything else.

I learned to dance. To play piano again. To freedive again. To write again.

Not to impress anyone. Not to become someone new.

To find out who I was.

The Money

I burned €50 million.

Three years. Two hundred people. Five major banks as partners. Visa. Mastercard. Samsung. Sony.

We were building mobile payments before Apple Pay existed.

We failed spectacularly.

I wrote about it here. The technology trap. The user experience death spiral. The desperate TV ad with 107 naked people that got banned by YouTube.

All of it.

But here's what I didn't write: the project failed for the same reason my relationship failed.

I was building it to prove something.

Not to users. To myself.

I needed that project to succeed because I needed to be the person who built the future. Who saw what others couldn't. Who was right when everyone else was wrong.

The product didn't matter. The users didn't matter.

My identity mattered.

And when the users didn't show up, when the technology became obsolete, when we finally shut it down, I was crushed.

Again.

The Pattern

Two massive failures. Same root cause.

I was building my identity on things I couldn't control.

Her feelings. User adoption. Market timing. Other people's validation.

Every time I tried to force the outcome, I made it worse.

Both times, desperation showed.

Both times, I ignored the signals telling me to stop.

Both times, I learned the lesson too late.

What I Found

You can't build yourself on someone else's approval.

Not a woman's. Not users'. Not your board's.

You have to know who you are when everything else falls away.

Strength comes from consistency, not intensity.

Show up. Do the work. Don't perform for anyone.

Dancing taught that you can't control the music, only how you move to it. Making fun of it is also your part.

Freediving taught me that panic kills you. Calm keeps you alive.

All of it pointed to the same truth: I was looking outside for something that had to come from inside.

Who I Am Now

I'm calmer. Not because life got easier. Because I no longer needed it to validate me.

I'm braver. Not because I'm fearless. Because I've survived the things I feared most.

I'm grounded. Not because I have all the answers. Because I'm okay not having them.

I'm also a better AI strategist now. Not because I learned technology. Because I learned to spot desperation.

In myself. In others. In strategy discussions where teams are building for validation instead of users.

When executives tell me about their AI projects, I hear echoes of my own experiences. The partnerships that create complexity. The features that add friction. The marketing that masks fundamental problems.

And I can say what I needed someone to tell me then: Stop. Breathe. Ask yourself what you're really building and why. I'm a coach myself now.

What You're Building

Most AI projects fail for the same reason my relationship and my product failed.

They're built on external validation instead of internal clarity.

You're building to prove you're innovative. To impress the board. To match what competitors are doing. To avoid being left behind.

Not because users need it. Not because it solves a real problem. Not because the timing is right.

You're building your identity, not your product.

And when it fails—and it will—you'll be crushed.

Unless you learn the lesson now instead of later.

Know who you are before you build. Know what you're solving before you innovate. Know why you're doing this before you convince 200 people to follow you.

The most expensive education I ever got cost €50 million and a broken heart.

You can learn it cheaper.

Your move.