On December 6th 2012 I left Brazil for San Francisco to answer a call. The universe had been reaching out to me and inviting me to do something more, or at the very least different, for weeks, and it was that day that things finally aligned for me to answer.

I was scared, but at the same time the blood in my veins had been replaced by electricity and my eyes by telescopes. On the plane from São Paulo I would frequently go to the lavatory and just stare in to the mirror. My facial expressions changed every second or so between elation and blindness. Conquering and fear.

“Fear. Deep rotting fear. They were infected by it. Did you see? Fear is a sickness. It will crawl into the soul of anyone who engages it. It has tainted your peace already. I did not raise you to see you live with fear. Strike it from your heart. Do not bring it into our village.”

These wise words from a father in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto came back to me as I splashed water on my face from that little washbasin. Was I truly afraid? Had this cancer taken root in me? I reflected then, as I reflect now, on my family. My wife. My two-year-old daughter. My six-month-old son. Why would I leave them even for a day if I could help it? Why for a week? Or weeks and weeks? And who knows how long this will be before we find an apartment. Or feel ready to find an apartment in the same city, or even the same state.

Am I afraid?

The months leading up to my departure from Baby.com.br were filled with imbalance, a lack of equilibrium, and a scratching knowledge that there was a road, a path before me that would lead me forward on my life’s mission. And I followed it. There are many things that I didn’t know about this road before I began walking it. There are also many things on this road I knew would lie ahead when I took that step out in to the darkness. Was I ready to face those things I knew and those things I knew I didn’t know? Was I ready to be alone? Was I ready to be rejected? By peers. By legends.

The universe guided me here. Picked me up and shot me across the sky. My head exploded with pyrotechnics and a sound we’ve all heard before. Boom.

Am I afraid?

Am I completely nuts? Is it even moral to do what I’m doing and leave my darling wife in Utah while I enter a fray that has claimed more than I care to dwell on?

So, am I afraid? No. I don’t wake up every morning and shudder. When I look at myself in the mirror I don’t question. When I pitch my business, I do so with the knowledge that I have a whole universe behind me pushing me in to an industry that is aching for disruption. When I look back at my life I see a slew of innumerable moments that have prepared me to wake up this morning, to put on my pants and my t-shirt and stand at my desk and write a note to any would-be entrepreneur, founder, investor, and my family and say to all as a kind of invocation: let’s start this thing up.