The road back: when success is not enough

Airports. Mixed-up time zones. Meetings in different languages. Bairo says he built businesses in Portugal, the United States, London, Hong Kong, Bolivia and Dubai.

The immigrant who once had no documents in hand now moves around the world. It wasn't a job title that took him. It was the road.

And, at some point on that road, everything collapses again.

Broke, broken and beaten. Those are his words. No money, no apparent way out, not a single plan left in the drawer.

But still with a flame. Of hope, and of faith.

What this stage is

In Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey (1949), organized into twelve stages by Christopher Vogler, the tenth stage is the road back.

After the reward, the hero has to decide whether to return to the world and do something with what was won. Vogler describes this stage as a moment of pursuit: the forces the hero faced have not disappeared, and they often come after them. A new setback is common here, one that tests whether the transformation was real or only passing.

The road back is also a choice of direction. The hero realizes the adventure was not about the treasure. It was about what they will do with it, and for whom.

In Bairo's life

The reward of the coin and the community opened the road. Bairo began building businesses outside Brazil, in several countries, and seeing the world as his address. The man who had known the shade learned to walk in the sun of many places.

A beautiful map, however, does not mean an easy road. No one knows for sure how many times, along that road, he tried, thought about stopping and almost gave up. Not even he keeps that count. What he does tell is that, at some point, he hit the ground again.

This is the part of the journey most success stories hide. Success is not a line that only goes up. Some people lose everything after having already won, and that fall hurts in its own way, because it comes with a question: if I already knew, how did I fall again?

Bairo's answer was not a new business strategy. It was a change of direction. He had already traveled the world on the outside. The road inward was what was missing.

That is the turn that defines the rest of the story. The road back, for him, was not a return to a country, a company or a position. It was a return to himself. And it began with the only thing still whole: the flame of hope and faith.

The next stage tells what happened when he followed that flame.

In your life

Maybe you've already had a good phase and are now back on the ground. Or maybe you're doing well on the outside and empty on the inside. Both situations are roads back.

If you are an entrepreneur who went broke after things had already worked, the shame is usually greater than the first time. If you are an immigrant who has lived in several places, you may feel you belong to none. If you are starting over for the second, third or fourth time, you may be wondering whether it's worth trying again.

Questions to find the direction:

• What did you achieve on the outside that didn't fill you on the inside?
• If the next attempt works, whom will it serve besides you?
• What is still whole in you, even after everything? Faith, family, health, a skill, a friend?
• Are you trying to get back to where you were, or to go where you need to go?

Three steps for the road back

1. Stop running for a week. It's not giving up: it's listening. Cut the noise you can cut, like social media, news, conversations that only make things worse. Set aside some time each day to sit in silence with a sheet of paper.
2. Write down your flame. What still gets you up in the morning? It may be faith, a child, an idea. Write it in one sentence and keep it where you can see it.
3. Redefine the "what for." Before planning the next business, answer: whom will it help? Projects that serve someone besides their owner tend to find strength where others stop.

Falling after having risen does not erase the climb. Sometimes it is the way life finds to change your direction.

The line for this stage

"Sometimes the road back doesn't lead to a place. It leads inward."

A line written for this series, drawn from Bairo's story.

Next stage

Stage 11: The resurrection, how to be reborn after rock bottom

Read also

• The coin and the road
• Bairo's Hero's Journey, stage by stage
• How to deal with the shame of going broke?