401: Emotional startup lessons from Nori cofounders—w/ Alexsandra Guerra of Calming Chaos

What happens when you ask a startup founder how a decision made them feel and their eyes start to water? What happens when you realize the person who drove you the craziest at your company was right about all the things you dismissed as too woo? What happens when you look at the wreckage of a seven-year startup and realize the business model failed but the mission didn't?Today I'm talking with Alexsandra Guerra, "Alé", one of my former cofounders at Nori. Her voice used to be the intro to this very podcast. She's now a coach for purpose-driven founders through her business Calming Chaos, and we're doing something I've wanted to do for a while: an honest, no-bs conversation about what went wrong between us, what we've learned since, and why the emotional stuff that I used to dismiss is actually what's holding back so much innovation in climate and beyond.Alé shared her story in a way I wasn't expecting. The perfectionism, the imposter syndrome, the hero complex that made her volunteer for work she couldn't sustain, the sensitivity to feedback that followed, the burnout that was inevitable. She traced all of it back to childhood—a father who didn't show up, a mother who told her to stop crying, and a lifetime of performing for love that was supposed to just be there. And then she connected it to how she showed up at Nori, and I have to admit: it explained a lot of things I didn't understand at the time.I did my version too. The compulsive reading that everyone compliments but that's actually a way of never having a quiet moment. The diminishing returns of knowledge versus the increasing returns of wisdom. The times I should have listened to my gut and didn't because I couldn't articulate it analytically.We got into patriarchy, the spiritual emptiness of power-seeking, why my most common piece of advice to founders is to go to therapy, and why Alé believes entrepreneurship is fundamentally a spiritual process. I didn't want that to be true when we were running Nori together. I'm pretty sure she was right the whole time. It just took me awhile to open up to it. This Episode's Sponsors⁠⁠⁠EcoEngineers: a carbon dioxide removal and carbon market consultancy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Philip Lee LLP: legal resources for carbon removal buyers and suppliers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to the RCC episode with Ryan Covington from Philip Lee LLP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ about project finance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to the RCC episode with Lev Gantly about the history and current status of CORSIA⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate ChangeSubscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠Calming Chaos: Ale's coaching practice⁠Gabor Maté