The Loneliness at the Top, and the Courage to Face It

What we talked about.

Sunny Ray sits down with Ramon, a Mexican born, Barcelona based executive coach for founder CEOs, industrial engineer, and MBA who has built eight companies, including one named a top 50 innovative fintech startup and another that returned 7x in eighteen months. Ramon shares how entrepreneurship is a creative act of building something from nothing, and how AI is flattening the path to starting a business while pushing more people toward founding their own ventures. He opens up about closing his first major startup after moving his family to Barcelona, the loneliness and identity crisis that followed, and how that scar led him to become a coach. The conversation moves into inner work, including his framework of observer versus action versus results, and a discussion sparked by Sunny's own journey with Dr. Joe Dispenza's teachings on becoming your best self before chasing outward results. Ramon closes with a story of thinking outside the rules to multiply returns on a mortgage brokerage venture. Throughout, the episode circles back to its central theme, the isolation founders feel at the top and the courage required to face it honestly.

A coach who built and lost startups opens up on founder loneliness, AI, and becoming your best self before chasing results.

The questions, and the answers.

Do you think AI will accelerate the world toward more entrepreneurship, even as it threatens jobs?

We are on the brink of massive change, similar to when cars replaced carriages or the printing press changed everything. AI flattens the work of gathering information and building a business, so more people will need to reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs. When I studied engineering in 1994, starting a company took a year of planning. Now you can launch in two or three days, so I am genuinely excited about the opportunities this creates.

If someone is scared of losing their job but wants to pursue entrepreneurship, what should they do and how do you help them get past the fear?

This fear is not new, think of the PayPal mafia leaving one company to build amazing things elsewhere. This is the moment to be courageous, which does not mean feeling no fear, it means moving forward despite it. Everybody has skills, experience, and a unique point of view. You do not need to build the next SpaceX, you can start small in a lifestyle business or aim to disrupt an industry. Entrepreneurship is about pride, joy, impact, and yes, money too.

What did studying industrial engineering teach you about people that you still use in the coaching chair?

I am way more than an engineer, but that training gave me a systems mindset, thinking in possibility chains, decision trees, cause and effect. It taught me there is a network effect to every decision, so I never minimize a client's choices, I go deep with them into the consequences. Often the key in coaching is finding the simplest, most energy efficient move to get a result, because we tend to overcomplicate things.

You've started eight companies. Which one taught you the most, and was it a win or a scar?

My fintech company in Mexico, considered one of the most innovative startups in 2012, taught me the most. Externally we did everything right, but I became the bottleneck through my own decisions and need for validation, plus the loneliness of being an entrepreneur, which led me to hire a coach. When my family moved to Barcelona I could not raise money for a founder ten thousand kilometers away, so I had to close it. It left a scar, I felt like a failure and got depressed, but it led me here.

Can you talk about the idea of becoming your best self?

As entrepreneurs we chase results, the pitch, the client, the money, and we forget to examine the observer, who we actually are, before the action. There will be a point where more action, more mentors, more books simply are not enough. Buddha said suffering is part of being human, and we can grow through hitting walls or we can intentionally enlarge our sense of self. Entrepreneurs want freedom, to use their unique talents, and meaning, otherwise it just feels like Groundhog Day.

One of your ventures returned about 7x in eighteen months. What did you understand then that most founders miss?

We bought a mortgage broker franchise, but following the franchise rules limited us with office costs and a weak brand. So with a new partner I negotiated to drop the franchise name, use their infrastructure, and place our own team directly inside massive real estate developments as their in house mortgage department. We only paid salaries, no office or utilities, and processed mortgages for around 150 units. The lesson is thinking outside the box and finding the simplest path to a home run.