Our society loves to glorify billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban and Elon Musk, but in reality, there are millions of others out there who have accumulated substantial debt from their failed businesses. Entrepreneurs pay a steep price—financially and mentally—when they flop.
We learned to live with the huge elephant in the room. We ignored the pain and suffering each of us felt, until a few months later when I came home from school and found my parents troubled and uneasy. I instantly knew something was wrong again, and I would later become very familiar with their anxious faces.
Baba stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be fine, that I shouldn’t worry. I had lost all trust in him, but I could still see the burden in his eyes. Later that night, I overheard Baba telling Maman that we needed to downsize. I couldn’t fathom living anywhere other than the Elahieh district of Shemiran. Our entire family lived there, and I grew up in that house. I didn’t want to leave my magical life for anything else.
When my father followed up his failed marriage with a failed business, I had little sympathy. But today I can understand and relate to his struggles. They played an integral part in helping me cope with building my own destiny. And he had it much worse than I did. I didn’t have children, a spouse, and a family to support. You can never truly understand what someone is going through unless you experience it yourself. And once you do, you’ll withdraw your prior judgment. I spent my time blaming Baba instead of trying to understand him. If I could go back in time, I would show him more empathy. One of Baba’s business partners had bailed out of the country, leaving Baba to deal with the aftermath of a variety of bad business decisions that ultimately jeopardized everything he had worked for. My family’s financial situation became very fragile, but I was oblivious to the extent of the damage at the time. To put it simply, my father had lost an absurd amount of money.
There was no way to blame anyone else for our family’s financial demise. Not only did my father choose to put us in commercially risky situations, he also spent money frivolously, without thinking twice. He would spend thousands of dollars hosting gatherings for his friends. Baba was the kind of man who would buy my cousin a car because his parents couldn’t afford it. No one actually needed the things he was buying, but his desire to please everyone was a major factor in his fiscal irresponsibility.
Baba was never the same. Everyone goes through periods in their lifetime where they feel sad, frustrated, and less motivated, and they get less pleasure out of life. But Baba didn’t know how to deal with this hit, and he couldn’t find the strength to adjust to a new lifestyle. He became sick—sick from depression and desperation. His symptoms were severe, and his feelings became extreme—so extreme that he couldn’t get out of bed.
This charismatic man seemed to shrivel up overnight. He spent his days and nights sleeping his life away and seldom left his room. Baba’s depression not only affected him, but everyone around him. Maman quickly took over Baba’s role in the family. I admired her for that. She worked at her father’s factory and did everything in her power to try to ameliorate our financial situation.
It wasn’t long before my parents’ relationship began to deteriorate even more. It felt like no matter how much everyone tried to support him, Baba couldn’t dig himself out of his black hole. He was hit so hard by the reality of what had happened that all of his willpower vanished. Eventually, Maman moved Baba out of their room so his negativity wouldn’t rub off on her. It was sad to watch him psychologically crumble. I always thought of Baba as a powerful man, and now he was helpless. He was unexpectedly dethroned and hurled into a life of slavery to his failure.
After a while, our house in Shemiran was no longer filled with extravagant people, the Rose Garden started to feel isolated, and arguments between my family members became a never-ending ordeal. Where were all the people who used to play music, dance to the beat of the tabl, or tell ghost stories in the garden? When my parents could no longer throw those lavish parties, half our “friends” slowly vanished. People want to be around you when your life glistens, but the moment your shine begins to fade, so do they.
Baba slept his life away for nearly two years, and then he finally got out of bed. He would occasionally join us for dinner, and a few times a week his brother and lawyer would come over to the house for meetings. Sometimes he would even crack jokes. My father had found the strength to get himself back up and create a plan for a better future. He wanted to start another business—a pasta factory!
Baba didn’t have any background in pasta-making, or the food industry for that matter, but he believed that there was a major need for pasta in the Iranian market, and he wanted to capitalize on that demand. This is a perfect example of why I said my family members are a bunch of crazy risk-taking entrepreneurs. They do what they think feels right at the time.
Baba and his brother sold property to finance the new business venture and opened a massive pasta factory in Karaj, near the Rose Garden. I think Baba intended the factory to be a big “fuck you” to everyone who cut ties with our family. That was his way of saying, “Look at me now, I went from being powerless to powerful again.” The factory itself was lovely, and I can assure you, there was never a shortage of pasta in our house. Boxes and boxes of pasta. It was out of control, to a point that anyone leaving our house would leave with a box of pasta. I felt hopeful, seeing their pasta commercials on TV and seeing my father walk with purpose again. He always needed a certain level of power to make him stand strong.
Sadly, Baba was either cursed or simply made horrible business decisions. The pasta factory went bankrupt soon after, and Baba and his brother were forced to get rid of it. As it turned out, the key ingredient my father didn’t understand in business was that you have to start small and let your business grow organically. They spent all of their money creating a beautiful, gigantic factory without first understanding what it really took to run it. It was a characteristic mistake for him to make; it had much to do with the over-the-top lifestyle he was accustomed to.
History repeated itself, and Baba fell into another state of deep depression. But this time around, it was much darker than his first. This was the third time he had failed his family and himself. I still didn’t feel sorry for him. I was waiting for a miracle, for things to go back to being magical again. But as his failures piled up, his depression deepened. It was hard to be around someone whose attitude and personality depended on how much money was in his bank account.
There will always come a time in your life where no matter how positive and strong you are, things will go from bad to worse, and from worse to unbearable. Life is hard, and whoever told you the contrary was lying. My father can attest to that. Knowing how to adapt after you’ve lost everything is one of the most difficult struggles. How you garner the strength to bounce back is what will help make you a wiser person. Baba couldn’t get used to living more modestly because of his ego. He would find quick fixes, instead of long-term solutions, to financing his extravagant lifestyle. Not so wise. He approached business deals based on how the outside world perceived him. He couldn’t face the prospect of failure.
But I came to realize something important: If everything was always perfect, then we would never grow, and we would stay weak. A failure is not just a failure, it’s an opportunity. Besides, who sets the bar for failure? It’s not the end, it’s the beginning. So get hurt, cry it out, and walk right through the mud until you find that light again.
Fail every day! Get knocked down. Get back up. You become more when you do more.