Cancelled: The Sylvanaqua Farms Controversy

Lessons I Learned in Business and Life From My Character Assassination

via HBO

April 26, 2021 was the worst, and best, day of my life. I was about to break up with someone. Actually, closer to a dozen someones.

The previous 15 months had been some of the most bizarre in recent American history, kicking off with a pandemic, lurching into the most pronounced racial unrest in decades, and crescendoing with the January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the republic. These events had exerted a force on my state of mind that I couldn’t appreciate until the snows gave way to buds that Spring, and I found myself in a stunning predicament: I’d been hustled.

And to make no bones about it; I’d been hustled well. The people I was about to break up with? They were employees-turned-partners with whom I’d entwined my business finances, personal credit, and brand reputation to the point that if this thing was a tumor, most surgeons probably wouldn’t operate.

The previous day, April 25, 2021, I’d resolved to have the surgery anyway, and hope whatever balance of karma I had would cover the bill. So on the 26th — a day that I remember being warm, sunny, and beautiful — I met my soon-to-be-ex-partners at my workshop about 10 minutes away from the farm, and prepared for armageddon.