When the Roller Coaster Slows Down

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

There comes a time in the entrepreneurial journey when the stomach no longer flips at every upturn, when the adrenaline no longer screams in your veins like it used to. You may look around, wondering what has changed—and the startling answer is: you have.

In Reboot, I wrote: “The point of riding the roller coaster isn’t to be better at riding roller coasters; it’s to learn how not to board the roller coaster at all. Coney Island’s Cyclone is best appreciated from the ground. Resiliency isn’t the goal; it’s the path. The goal is the equanimity of a warrior.”

And yet, we do board it. We build the roller coaster. We bolt the tracks together with vision and caffeine, strap ourselves in with capital and belief, and scream with joy and terror through the early years. That scream—that launch—is part of what makes the journey worth it. But it’s not the only part.

Eventually, inevitably, if we’re lucky—or rather, if we’re wise—we find ourselves disembarking. The ride slows. We look at the world, not from the top of the arc, but from the long, low horizon of a quieter, more grounded perspective. The adrenaline stops pumping relentlessly. This is where I met Christian Fenner and Mathias Tholey.

They are the co-founders of Nucao, a purpose-driven chocolate company born not just of innovation, but of disillusionment. Christian speaks of his time at Mercedes-Benz, his first job after graduating from university, as a kind of spiritual desert: “I felt the purpose being sucked out of me.” Mathias, too, faced his own quarter-life reckoning. Both men turned away from lives that might have made their parents proud but left their souls empty. Together, they chose a different ride.

But it wasn’t long before their rocket ship dreams collided with the laws of gravity. Fueled by purpose, yes—but also naivete—they expanded fast, raised millions, and built a team of over 100. And then, it started to break. As Christian recalled, “We were hiring 10 to 20 people per month… the losses also grew.” And perhaps more tellingly: “Our awareness of human beings didn’t grow at all.”

It’s often in the breaking that we begin to build what lasts. “We ate a lot of shit,” Mathias said, laughing with the kind of humility that only comes from real pain. It was this humility that led them to IESE Business School of Founders program, led by Sebastian Ross—a program I’m honored to contribute to. There, something extraordinary happened. They didn’t learn how to board the next roller coaster. They learned how to stop climbing aboard.

In the program’s first session, the slide read: The inner game runs the outer game. Christian told me it hit him like a thunderclap. That weekend, they began to look inward, naming the shadows that had governed them: perfectionism, people-pleasing, imposter syndrome. Mathias spoke of uncovering the belief that he was not welcome in the world. These weren’t footnotes to their business struggles. They were the real issues shaping every decision, every misstep, every hire and fire.

At Reboot, we often speak of the open-hearted warrior: strong back, soft front. But before the heart can open, it must break. “The journey through pain—to the pain, through the pain, and beyond the pain—is a holy and sacred process. The process transforms us. It grows us into the adults we’ve always wanted to be.” That line from Reboot echoes through their story.

In time, Christian and Mathias began to rebuild. They cut products, cut countries, and—most painfully—let go of dozens of people. They did it three times. It hurt every time. But they also began to heal. The business shrank, then stabilized. It grew 60% last year. It’s no longer a unicorn dream—it’s a real, good company. ‘We’re doing good work, done well, for the right reasons,’ Christian said.

That phrase, borrowed from David Whyte, is what I wish for every leader. And it’s what Christian and Mathias have embraced. They’ve traded the chaos of the ride for the calm of the workshop. For the craft. They’ve found a rhythm. And in that rhythm, they’re becoming not just better entrepreneurs, but better men. ‘We still fuck up,’ Mathias said. ‘But now we have the vocabulary. Now we can name it. And we begin again.’

That, too, is a teaching from my beloved friend and Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg: begin again. Over and over, we begin again. And with each return to self, to purpose, to love, we come closer to what really matters.

After a weekend with Parker Palmer, I wrote down a phrase that came to me in the stillness that followed spending time with my mentor: What matters is what matters. I keep it taped under my monitor. 

It’s a simple phrase. But it’s the product of decades on this journey. And perhaps it marks the moment when I began to slip into elderhood. When I, too, stepped off the roller-coaster (or stopped trying to board it) and learned to walk.

What Sebastian has built at IESE is a space for this kind of walking. For this kind of reckoning. It’s intellectually rigorous, yes. But it’s also emotionally wise. It honors the full human behind the business card. And it gives co-founders like Christian and Mathias something far more valuable than a framework: it gives them back themselves.

And so I close with this: If you find yourself in that strange place where things are calmer than they used to be… if you’re wondering why the butterflies in your stomach have disappeared… don’t rush to stir the chaos again. Don’t mistake peace for complacency. You may be stepping off the ride. And that might be the wisest move of your life.

The ride was never the point. The point is to become the kind of person who no longer needs the ride to feel alive.