on driving through the snow

“I said a prayer this morning, I prayed I would find a way
To another day, I was so afraid
’Til you came and saved, you came and saved me
And the rain was pouring, ‘cause the sun faded away
Now I’m in a better place, no longer afraid
Blinded by Your Grace, you came and saved me, yeah”

— Blinded By Your Grace, pt. 2 by Stormy, MNEK

Yesterday we drove over 6 hours. 3 and a half of those were arguably in the most treacherous conditions we’ve ever been in. In the middle of a snowstorm in Lake Tahoe, driving a car we’ve never driven before. Not to mention we’re both noobs when it comes to driving in the snow in general.

I’ll start from the beginning. 2:30pm we leave San Francisco and Quincy after a tumultuous and rainy day. We had initially laid carefully laid plans and left “on time” for our schedule of 11:30am. But somehow 11:30am turned into $240 spent on groceries at Trader Joes and an arrival back at our apartment of 1:35pm. Slow Hertz lines, pouring rain slowing traffic, long Trader Joes haul plus unhurried packing. By the time we made it home, we were telling ourselves we could be out the door by 2:00pm and make it to Tahoe around 5:30pm if we just rushed. So we scarfed down some leftover Chinese takeout, did our final packing. We wanted to use a cart from Quincy to carry everything down, but sadly someone else (these two boys) were using it for an indeterminate amount of time. Time was of the essence it seemed so we grabbed as much as we could thinking we could do it ourselves—when boom we run into the empty and available cart in the elevator. I presume we’re pushing forward anyways, no time to course correct, and before I know it Idam and I are on different pages and he’s nowhere to be found. I angrily call him from the car, upset at the course deviation and lack of communication. He frustratingly hauls ass to the car to find me. One quick spat later, it’s suddenly 2:30pm and we’re finally all packed and ready to go.

By some miracle as we’re leaving, the rain had finally stopped in San Francisco and we actually see the sun again. For about an hour or so, it’s actually smooth sailing for me to drive. By the time we reach Sacramento, however somethings start to change. We see the clouds turn grey and our navigation says it’s going to take an additional 2 hours than originally planned. We figure it’s because of the current rain/snow mix in Tahoe, but presume by the time we get there the slow-down would have stopped.

Something beautiful happens between Sacramento and the Tahoe mountains — we see a double-ended rainbow. It feels like a portal into some new journey. Like we’re entering another dimension. I’m reminded of the Saint Louis arch and all those travelers who went westward in the US not knowing what challenges or gold rush lies ahead, not knowing what the other side will even look like. Neither of us has ever been to Lake Tahoe and the unknown of it all sparks excitement for us. I make Idam take a video to note this rainbow moment, for which he begrudgingly agrees after one failed take.

Then the rain starts pouring, hard. It’s falling not in sheets not in buckets but like we’re directly under a waterfall or a hose or something. The windshield wiper is wiping away, and people are driving cautiously again but I’m feeling weirdly confident.

As the elevation keeps climbing, we see signs saying “chain check” and start to get anxious for two reasons — one, that we don’t want to use chains for risk of being fined $10K by Hertz, and two, that we wonder if we’re missing something because it’s just rain. I’m reminded of our last roadtrip in California, where we saw signs of “road closure” on Highway 1 and didn’t bother turning around or realizing how bad the detour would be. We stop for a moment, ask ChatGPT if we need chains and we feel temporarily assured by AI telling us that no, we do not. So we keep going sans chains.

The “chain check” is just two women in orange ski suits on the highway asking if you have four-wheel drive. We nod that yes, we do. (Spoiler alert - this is where things start to go wrong). We’re driving a Jeep Wrangler with R2 tires for crying out loud. The anxiety was for nothing.

Not even one mile in past the chain check, we watch as the snow droplets turn into snowflakes before our eyes. What was 50 degrees outside turns into a meager 30. Suddenly, there’s an inch of snow on the ground. This part of the journey is what I call the fun beginning. We follow this audacious truck who has chains on that is creating the perfect little tracks before us to follow and keeps weaving through traffic expertly. We video this moment again, and I joke that it feels like we’re following a VC partner or just someone who looks like they know what they’re doing. It gives you a sense of security, like nothing bad could happen. We’re in awe of the trees and the snow and how beautiful it looks. All the while, the dark clouds turn into full on night. The truck seems to lose its gusto and I’m feeling so confident that I forge ahead without it—training wheels come off.

This next part is the warning signs. The thin snow slush starts turning into hard ice, and the chains leave imprints that feel like the grooves on the side of the highway. The car begins to shake very hard and my hands start to hurt from gripping the wheel so hard. Idam tells me to relax, what’s the worst that could happen, we’re not going to spin out. I’ve been driving for around 3.5 to 4 hours at this point and Idam offers to switch but there’s no good place to stop and I’m scared of stopping. But we do start slowing down. I had been hoping all along that we wouldn’t actually hit a slow down but we in fact, do. And each time I start breaking I feel the car weirdly sliding in the back, but I figure it’s something I did wrong. I figure I need to grip harder, like it’s something in my control that I’m slipping on. Fearing my own lack of abilities, at one particular slow down where we’re literally stopped, I ask Idam to switch.

Now, here comes the true fear. The true test of will you make it or not. Idam takes over driving. We’re at a crawl on the road, barely going 5-10 mph and mostly stopping. One of the first times he starts the car again, it starts spinning out from the back uncontrollably. I coach him through how to stay steady, how to reverse a little in order to go forward, but no harsh movements, no quick acceleration. He seems panicked but there’s no time for that. There’s a backlog of so many cars behind us. Once it happens another time, we’re getting increasingly scared of the journey not being possible. Once it happens a third time and we keep going back and back and back with no forward motion in sight (the car literally can’t) we start freaking out for real. I wonder if we should put on the chains, Idam says we can’t because you have to roll over them and anyways it don’t help with traction that much. It’s too late. I don’t even understand what the issue is and how we’re going to make it. I don’t remember how or why, but somehow I end up back in the drivers seat.

This trip weirdly made me believe in a higher power. For miles we had not seen any safety cars, highway patrol or police. So many pickup trucks had been passing us while we were stuck, but not for one second did I wonder what they thought of us or did I feel shame. When you’re in the arena, just worried about the survival, the only thing I cared about was whether or not they could help us. From seemingly out of nowhere a highway patrol pulls up next to us on our right and asks us if everything is alright with our vehicle. Idam hesitates and I intuitively shout us NO WE NEED HELP. I immediately hope and trust that he can do something to help us. He calmly (he does everything calmly, even though we are clearly freaking out) gets out of his car, comes and asks us to try to move again so we can see what’s stuck. He diagnoses the rear as the issue and says he’ll either dig us out or pull us. As he’s walking back to his car, for the second time someone asks us, “you’re in 4-wheel drive right?” Now for context, the Jeep is no Tesla. The buttons are very complicated. We learned the bare minimum to even get out of the parking lot from Hertz and the booth people there laughed when we didn’t even know how to turn down the windows in that god-forsaken console. But as soon as he asked that it sparked something within both Idam and I. During the journey, when the warning signs were starting, we started asking AI with what limited service we had what each of the buttons meant, wondering if we were missing something as we intuitively knew something was off or there must be some sort of pro mode to handle these conditions. There were also little things off, like our navigation panel being too bright (we eventually learned how to turn it off) or our lights being very dim (never figured that one out). I once again remind you that we were in a JEEP WRANGLER. It seemed to act no better than a fucking sedan and I kept looking at the Subarus or regular SUVs wondering how on earth are they fine. So when the patrol guy asked about our 4x4 mode, Idam immediately asked ChatGPT how to check. Sure enough, there was a separate gear box for it and not only did he find out what the gearbox was, but he deftly operated it when it made no sense to me. In the span of what felt like 10 minutes but was realistically only 2 or 3, we were back in business. I pressed the accelerator softly, and the car moved forward as if there had never been an issue and we were never stuck. We shouted at the guy THANK YOU, and he probably thought we were crazy because he neither did anything nor understood why a Jeep was stuck in the first place.

There’s a difference between things inside your control and outside your control. You get over one hurdle of things that are in your control, but feel like you’re losing control, like of your actual wheels. But then, the question remains of whether or not the bigger things like being able to move or go on a highway are going to happen. Five minutes turns into 45 minutes sitting on the highway. Even though we had finally figured out our traction, we were stuck and this time completely and actually outside our control. No one was moving. Not an inch. No google maps knew what was going on, no ETA could assuage our anxiety. Gali hadn’t peed or drank water since 11am at the latest and it was now 6:15pm. Before, we wondered if we’d have to be towed out of there (on what open road I don’t know) or airlifted or just abandon the car or something. Now, I wondered if the highway would be closed, the one road that would get us to our destination (our Airbnb) and we’d be forced to turn back after all that journey. At the same time, there was no way we wanted to turn back in either scenario. We had gone so far (4 hours), had decided on the destination, and ironically the other direction of the highway back to San Francisco was actually closed so we basically couldn’t turn back even if we wanted to.

Given the events that had happened, I was nervous that we were still missing some key information or skills to get over any future hurdles. All of my knowledge about the cars and getting stuck came from my dad, so naturally I called him. He was sleeping or tired or both, and deliriously just asked if I was going to school tomorrow, and who I was with. It made me laugh how out of it and unhelpful he was, and I felt silly and sad for asking. At one point he was a man who held all the answers for me, who was the calm person in a crisis who knew exactly what to do. Now it was just me and Idam who had to do that for ourselves.

There’s a Chinese proverb of fight with the river behind you. Fight because you have no other option other than forward. We were sitting in silence for a while on that highway. It felt like a measure of endurance or tenacity I have never experienced before. Yet, ironically, we weren’t even moving. I told Idam about how my biggest fear in life isn’t moving too fast, it’s being stuck for reasons outside of my control. As a kid I loved to take charge, to climb, to go on bikes, to climb stairs I wasn’t supposed to, and to run. Idam loves to explore, to test limits and see things he never has. We both hated feeling stuck on that road. But we kept our faith alive that eventually the hold would break. Even though we wondered whether it was a chain reaction of holdups, or just one in front of us and some bad luck that we caught it, we knew it was no use wondering and that it was firmly outside our control. Idam mentioned how in his research of the current status, he found out why the other side of the highway was closed. Someone had died. You might think that would make me more scared, but if anything it just made me more grateful that we were safe, in a warmish car, that was somewhat capable of moving forward. Every five minutes, I would inch forward, both to prevent the breaks from freezing over and also to gain a little confidence in the car. We named the Jeep Lucy and told her we believed in her and were grateful for her abilities. That made us feel more in control.

And forty-five minutes later, it did. I can’t remember if I saw the car 50-cars ahead of us move on the bend first or if Idam started playing music first. But either way, we let go. And so the block eased up and we started inching forward, slower than I wanted to at first, but I kept my patience and we slowly gained momentum at 10 mph, then 15, then 20, then 30. I noticed that so many people were scared and stayed on the same lane. So many people stayed below 30. I confidently hit 35 on the empty lane.

I could taste the finish line. I knew there wasn’t going to be another block in front of us, or so I prayed. Not even 20 minutes later, we hit a small ski town, saw civilization again. Idam started playing the song I quoted at the beginning and I felt so free and happy. It really felt like we had made it. Like we had quite literally weathered the storm and made it through. The flakes had even stopped.

Then came what I call the bureaucratic or fascist block. I get why rich people hate taxes and government regulation, especially entrepreneurs. Because after facing hurdles within your control, and then ones outside, the last thing you want is someone claiming to be “helpful” to literally stop you or slow you down. And that’s exactly what they did. 10 miles out from the lake house, they put an arbitrary gate for safety. What safety, I don’t know. What should have been a “couple of minutes” turned into 15, 20, 30 minutes again of just sitting there. And what killed me was knowing how pointless the roadblock was and how little it was doing for actual safety. If they wanted the roads to be 100% safe, they should have just blocked it off entirely. But eventually we’re let through. I am annoyed by an orange car in front of me not going fast enough. I am reminded of how life is like timing. We were only 2 cars deep when the gate closed. Maybe we missed it being open by like 3 minutes. Maybe we missed the blocker on the highway by 5. But those are forces outside your control. And that’s frankly the luck part of the journey. What matters then is what you do with that luck. God does give his toughest battles to his strongest warriors. Only the weak or those without capabilities get an easy life. We had a 4x4 Jeep Wrangler, that we didn’t even know was 4x4 until a battle. We didn’t know the rest of the tips and tricks of how to survive snow in 4H vs. 4L until post-crisis. And we only learned in the middle of it.

To make a very long story, somewhat short, we did eventually make it to the lake house and there was an unpaved road for about 1 mile that was 2-3 feet deep snow. So thank goodness we’d figured out how to maneuver Lucy properly. The lake house is beautiful. Gali loved the snow but didn’t pee or eat until this morning. When I lay in bed last night, my mind was still racing, my heart had beat so much and I had been so tight last night I felt like I had literally fought a battle. But at the same time, I felt complete. Like satisfied that I had done the hard thing. It’s not like we were actually life or death at any point, but I felt so grateful to the snow patrol man and to our own sense of agency and bravery for pushing through and never giving up.

There were so many times we could’ve let our emotions paralyze us, panic make us give up and abandon ship, and lose our faith. But that would’ve been so terrible for our confidence and we had no idea how close we were. Looking back, I feel silly for thinking that our biggest problem was just whether or not we needed chains on our tires, whether or not we would pass a checkpoint. That was the easy part. What lay ahead was completely unknown to me, and I honestly wouldn’t have had it any other way. We had hints and random knowledge to help us, like Idam knowing about the chains or my random rocking trick, and Idam’s intention to get a Jeep, but the rest we really learned on the fly with a safe advisor of ChatGPT and our own agency. This whole journey just made me so glad to be doing this with Idam and realizing how little I am going to know going into entrepreneurship. But at the same time, I don’t want to know what could go wrong until I’m faced with it. Because otherwise, I’m not sure if I would set out on the journey in the first place. And I’m grateful for having a destination in mind and no other option. Because you can’t be half in and half out, we never would’ve made it to the Lakehouse and would have just bailed at the first exit to some rest stop to spend the night. And then we would have never experience the magic of this journey.

I almost cried when I first heard that Stormzy song. Entrepreneurship and any journey you’re on is ultimately one of faith and perseverance. I know it sounds so privileged and trivial talking about driving through a snow storm in a JEEP WRANGLER which I know we really should have had basically no problems in. I know our biggest complaint should have just been the traffic. But I have no complaints on this journey and honestly nothing I would have done differently. I am done beating myself up for not being perfect enough, not being prepared enough. There is no right moment to start, and you’ll find the tools and the skills as you go. Trust in yourself and go.

Other observations/reflections

• Chinese proverb isn’t about having survival instinct but more so steadfastness and determination to move forward with no option to turn back
• We stopped thinking about everything we could lose once we made it forward in 4x4 and everything we could gain (e.g. getting to lake house as the prize)
• Steady shift from scarcity —> abundance mindset
• Trust gained through experience
  • Literally gaining trust in our vehicle (parallel to startup)
  • Trust in each other
• At the time of crisis, you’re kind of feeling like you’re fucked and just cursing why did I have to leave now and put myself in this scenario (victim mindset)
• If we had known how fucked we would be, would have been too scared to do in the first place
• Timing and luck as random — e.g. randomly picking jeep, randomly seeing cart, chains knowledge, patrol guy coming
• Bad luck - timing with block
• Battles early on teach you what you’re capable of and early losses make you stronger so that you can actually reach new heights
• If not for spinning out, til now we wouldn’t have been able to get to house

Lessons

• There’s a false sense of security from following people “ahead” of you, recognizing when it’s time to take off the training wheels is important for agency
• You can’t know what you need to know until you’re in the arena
• Everything feels like knowing chains exist without knowing when or how to use them
• Capabilities get revealed through constraint or forcing function that removes optionality and forces you to push through and problem solve through every possible angle
• Experimentation and never giving up are the key strengths here
• Emotional control >> more important than any real execution failures
  • Keeping composure to be able to problem solve
• Luck and agency and intermingled— “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”
• Fail in visible ways that make rescue possible
• Unknowns in startups are sequential and experience compounds nonlinearly — the whole not being able to get over the hill thing
• Everything is like a video game adventure
• Knowing what is real constraint versus something to circumvent / tolerate
  • e.g. bureaucratic blocks can’t be optimized
• Sometimes you have all the tools, resources, etc. but it’s gated behind the knowledge of the right question to ask and what frameworks to use
  • The patrol guy didn’t suddenly give us the ability to drive 4x4, he just asked the right question
• Old knowledge /context like my dad rarely transfers to current context
• Leaving conventional security or authority isn’t reckless, it’s knowing that no one’s coming and that the security they gave was illusory anyways
• Maximum doubt happens right before a breakthrough and flow state that leads to rational understanding
• Sometimes you have to move through grace and faith where the payoff is invisible and delayed and you just have to sit there, taking a leap of faith
• You have to shift from blame state to externalizing problems to collaboration
  • e.g. I was the problem —> something is mechanically wrong—> let’s figure this out with Lucy as a vehicle that we believed in instead of literally wrestling her and gripping her
• The stormzy song captured the transition from scarcity “we’re not going to make it” —> abundance “we’re going to make it”