From Pain to Peace & Purpose
Why I’m joining StartUp Health
I’m a mission-driven entrepreneur who lost his mom two years ago after a long-fought battle against pancreatic cancer. I promised her — and myself — I would not be defined by loss. That I would channel the suffering our family experienced — and that of so many — to ensure it would never be in vain. This is what has pushed me to make a change and join the incredibly passionate, determined and talented team at StartUp Health and dedicate myself to accomplishing a “moonshot” of a lifetime.
StartUp Health has been described many different ways — from a venture fund to an Academy for supporting health innovators — but what I’ve learned is that it’s much more. StartUp Health is a global army of entrepreneurs known as “Health Transformers” committed to accomplishing 10 “Health Moonshots” — like curing cancer — and improving the health and well-being of everyone in the World.
Drawing from the words of JFK when he launched the first “moonshot” into space, StartUp Health strives to invest in — and accomplish — the impossible “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” With world-class angel investors like Steve Case and Mark Cuban, strategic investors like Ping An and Guidewell, and partners like GE and SAP, StartUp Health is defying the odds in transforming health.
For many reasons, this feels like life coming full circle for me. In 2011, I proudly served in the Obama White House and first met Vice President Joe Biden at the Hispanic Heritage event at the Naval Observatory and Vice Presidential Residence (coincidentally, the same year StartUp Health was launched at the Obama White House). Over the course of almost two years, I was privileged and honored to witness his leadership in action time and time again.
In 2015, I returned to the VP’s Residence for another Hispanic Heritage event. The Vice President had just lost his son Beau to cancer and my wife and I had the chance to share our family’s story with the VP and Dr. Biden. We thanked them for the incredible way they inspired us to never lose hope and carry on. We talked for a while about my mom and how we were trying to help her accomplish lifelong goals — including taking her back to Cuba after 46 years as part of a pilgrimage with Pope Francis.
That was a Tuesday — my mom would receive chemo on Mondays. Needless to say it was a rough day for her and she was thinking of canceling the trip. When we shared this with Vice President Biden, he asked me for my mom’s phone number and called to encourage her to go.
Thanks in part to his encouragement, she ended up going and was blessed by the Pope after mass in Havana.
The next day, she was dancing in her hometown streets of Sancti Spiritus (almost two months to the day before she passed).
To this day, I remain incredibly appreciative and indebted to the Vice President for his words of encouragement at such a critical time — and the ability to take part in that once in a lifetime trip with her.
Shortly thereafter, the Vice President announced in a Rose Garden address that he would not be running for President in 2016. I remember watching the address from my mom’s hospital room at UM Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. On the heels of losing his son Beau, he didn’t let that moment pass without issuing a “battle cry” and calling for “a moonshot to cure cancer.”
As I held my mom’s hand and she received yet another dose of chemo, I instantly reached out to my former White House colleagues and the Vice President’s staff to ask how I could enlist myself in his effort to end cancer as we know it. And following the passing of my mom, I published an op-ed in the Miami Herald in support of the Vice President’s call for a Cancer Moonshot.
Earlier this month, I had a chance to once again reconnect with the Vice President after his keynote at the StartUp Health Festival. He talked about the “urgency of now” — the need for us to push the boundaries of innovation and to strive to do the impossible because of what ultimately is at-stake.
In a fire-side chat with the VP’s son-in-law and StartUp Health Chief Medical Officer Howard Krein, the Vice President talked about loss and the pain of losing a loved one. He said that there would come a time when we would see the loved ones we’ve lost in the loved ones that stayed behind. And that at some point, this would go from being a source of pain to being a source of peace and purpose. And we would realize — we never lost them to begin with and they remain very much with us today.
Recently, I’ve started to see my mom in my sisters, my children, my aunts and even my wife. It’s something about the way they carry themselves or the way they gesture that inextricably reminds me of her. And recently, it has become a source of peace.
At StartUp Health, I’ve also come across thousands of entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders who’ve gone through a similar experience. And while we strive for peace, we’ve also found a way to channel this for purpose.
For all these reasons, I’m incredibly humbled and honored to join them in a global army that strives to accomplish health moonshots and that will inevitably improve the well-being of everyone in the World.
To learn more about StartUp Health, visit www.StartUpHealth.com and enlist in the global army transforming health worldwide.
