Brick #5 Grief
The Season of Letting Go
The other day, it all came down on me. The heaviness of grief.
Not the kind that arrives only when someone dies, but the kind that sneaks in when you catch yourself missing the life you thought you’d have. The grief of what family life used to look like. The grief of earlier versions of myself who didn’t yet know what I know now. The grief of a dream summer I’ll never be back inside of.
It brought me to my knees.
As someone who values growth in business, in life I share this because I believe the human experience needs to be more real and accessible in the way we work. I’m not saying we all bring our rawest emotions to every meeting.
I am saying we can’t pretend cycles don’t exist. They move through us whether we acknowledge them or not.
And here’s the kicker: this all landed on me the day of the autumn equinox. I didn’t realize it until after. A moment literally designed to remind us of cycles light giving way to dark, harvest before winter, endings that contain beginnings.
Maybe grief isn’t a setback. Maybe it’s just a sign a new season is here.
The cycles of building
Part of building brick by brick is admitting that sometimes the bricks crumble or break. Grief isn’t just loss it’s transition. It’s the discomfort of letting go.
I’m feeling that in my work, too. For so long, I carried everything alone. Every email, every deck, every detail sat on my shoulders. It was survival mode, yes but also control.
Now, I’ve grown the team. An events coordinator intern. A media director. A head of innovation culture. People who not only believe in the vision, but also share the deeper values of how they see the world, community, and personal growth.
It’s surreal to suddenly have what feels like a dream team. And it’s also a little grief-inducing to realize: I can’t, and shouldn’t, do it all myself anymore. That chapter is gone.
The mantra I’ve been repeating is: You’ve proven yourself. Now just lead.
That’s the level-up. It’s not about proving anymore. It’s about trusting. Getting out of the weeds. Staying aligned with highest and best use. Some days are smoother than others, but I can feel it happening.
Notes from the Field
Team Growth → Welcoming new voices and perspectives into Freeway. Grieving the lone-builder era, but celebrating the capacity to build bigger and healthier.
Venture Café → Last night, I moderated a conversation on the power of collaboration with some powerhouse players in Phoenix. Collaboration, cycles, grief, growth they’re all connected.
Summit Countdown → We’re almost one month away from the Tech Talent Summit + Startup World Cup. The true test isn’t the event itself, it’s how calm and well we remain before it. That’s the practice: choosing presence in the journey. Easier said than done, but I’m here for it!
A closing reflection
What I’m learning is that grief isn’t a detour from the build it is part of the build.
Every brick we lay down carries weight, but sometimes it cracks. Sometimes the mortar doesn’t hold. Sometimes we have to start over. That’s not failure it’s the cycle. It’s the rhythm of building anything worth keeping: businesses, relationships, communities, even our own sense of self.
Grief shows up when we’re being asked to release what no longer serves the next chapter. For me, that has looked like:
Letting go of the lone-builder identity and trusting a team.
Admitting that earlier mistakes, while painful, were also teachers that cleared the path for new ones.
Accepting that the Phoenix ecosystem like me is in a season of transition, moving from adolescence into something more powerful, more global.
In that way, grief is strangely hopeful. It means there’s something to lose because there’s something real being built.
As we head into this next month the summit, the talks, the collaborations I’m holding onto this truth: the calm we cultivate now is what will allow us to show up with strength later. Grief isn’t an interruption to that calm. It’s an invitation to make peace with change, to welcome the season that’s arriving, and to trust that we’re still laying the bricks that will outlast us.
With love and gratitude,
Daniela