29 May 2025 4 min read Pop Culture

Don't Let the Bastards Win

Building something from nothing will cost you everything and still won’t promise a payoff. But you do it anyway because quitting isn’t an option.

The thing you've been trying to figure out might already be written down.

Building something from nothing will cost you everything and still won't promise a payoff.

I have a love-hate relationship with any movie that can make me cry. I love that ‘catharsis’ of recognition, when something resonates so deeply, you feel so 'not alone in this experience of life'.

I hate it because I cry ugly. Like, red-nosed, blotchy-faced, glassy-eyed, 'don’t look at me’ levels of hideous.

But every now and then, a story hits you with a hard-hitting truth: building something you believe in will cost you everything and still won’t promise a payoff. But for some reason, you try to build it anyway.

When I sat down to watch Nonnas on Netflix with the Balkan Storm, I figured I was in for a sweet little documentary, some light comfort food vibes, maybe even a few cooking tips.

I did not expect to see snippets of my own life in a movie about grandmothers and gravy.

The film follows Joe Scaravella (played by Vince Vaughn), a Staten Island guy who, after losing his mother and grandmother, decides to open a restaurant. But not just any restaurant - one that would be staffed by grandmothers from around the world, each one cooking traditional dishes passed down through generations, served straight from the heart.

It’s a wild idea, and it nearly doesn’t work.

Joe pours in his savings. He struggles to market the concept. He navigates the bedlam of clashing cultures, conflicting palates, and strong-willed matriarchs with zero interest in being managed.

He doesn’t have a business plan or even a backup plan; he just has this gut feeling that what he’s doing matters and that people need this.

And that’s where it got me. Because I’m smack-dab in the middle of creating something too. Something more important to me than anything I’ve ever done.

I’ve got no long-term investors or a ‘how-to’ guide (thank you, ChatGPT, for teaching me how to code a website). Just a voice in my head that won’t shut up and a vision I can’t shake.

While I’m caring for my family, I’ve also been pouring everything I have into this project, one I believe in more than anything I’ve ever created before. So much so that even my Type-A ‘get shit done’ husband has voiced some concerns.

It’s fine, though, really.
I think.

The truth is, every day I'm trying to conjure something out of thin air, praying it sticks before my energy and enthusiasm run out.

And that’s what Nonnas shows so well, the tension happening in the back of the house. The financial and emotional stress and the utter exhaustion of believing in something long before the world even notices.

There’s even a Staten Island local who actively told people not to go to Joe’s restaurant. Just out there undercutting his efforts and trashing the vision before it even had a chance to exist.

Because there’s always someone like that in your life, isn't there? Someone who puts you down or poo-poos your dreams.

Always someone who’d rather watch you fail than admit you’re doing something they don't have the guts to attempt.

Sometimes it’s a bitter bystander with too much time and too little vision. Or a frenemy who pokes holes in your dream and tells you they're just 'concerned'.

And sometimes, perhaps worst of all, it’s you.

And that’s where the real battle is, isn’t it? Not letting anyone's doubt, including your own, decide whether you keep going or not.

That's the whole power of not quitting, the unglamorous discipline of slogging through it again and again when it would be so much easier to walk away.

Nonetheless, perseverance through doubt is the only way forward.

☕ Goals run on caffeine. Want to help fuel mine?

There’s this moment when Joe, desperate and running on fumes, shows up at the New York Times office with a bag of food. He’s not even sure the critic is going to read the letter, let alone taste what he brought.

When he hears nothing back from them, he figures it’s over. He is tapped out: there's no more money left to keep the dream alive.

So he throws a party, one last hurrah to use up the inventory before closing his doors forever. But behind the scenes, something was already happening for Joe. A review had gone to print.

And the next morning, there was a line out the door. That was fifteen years ago.

Enoteca Maria is still open and run by grandmothers from every corner of the world. Still going strong and feeding people like family, all because someone refused to quit on something that felt right.

And God knows I needed that reminder.

I have no idea how this story ends for us yet, but that's part of building something from nothing: you just keep going without guarantees, no matter what. I can’t even talk publicly about half of what we’re up against in so many areas of life.

Not yet, anyway.

What I can say is that I’ve never fought harder for something that no one else can see yet. I never believed in something this deeply without knowing if it would ever really take off.

This platform has a pulse, which means everything to me. I never expected it to get this far already. So I keep working, keep betting on what this could be, even when it hurts like hell.

Because sometimes, the breakthrough comes right after you thought you’d lost.

The Balkan Storm says it all the time: Don’t let the bastards win.

And I won't.

✉️ For the overthinkers, the builders, the ones who refuse to quit—subscribe here. Zero cost, zero spam.