The Caramelization Layer - What You're Missing While Grinding for the Breakthrough
Why the Sweetness You're Chasing Is Already Caramelizing at Home
Caramelizing onions requires low heat and patience. Rush it with high heat and they burn. The sweetness doesn't come from intensity—it comes from sustained, gentle presence over time.
I've been rushing. Trying to force the breakthrough with high heat, burning everything I touch while missing the caramelization happening right in front of me.
The Distance I Created
My wife stayed through everything. The wreckless years at another crossroads. The 7–8 years of grinding with a tech company that keeps promising "almost there." The tight budgets. The rare dinners out. The late nights working after our son goes to sleep.
She makes our place a home. You can feel the love when you walk in—cozy, toys everywhere, big Christmas tree up. She's an amazing mother. We're raising our son together in a space that feels warm even when bank accounts feel cold.
But I've been creating distance.
Not because I don't love her. Because I'm angry at myself for not breaking through fast enough. And that anger manifests as withdrawal.
I miss the affection—hugs, holding hands, the small gestures. We recognize it. Talk about it. "Our child takes all that time." But that's also a convenient explanation for the space I'm creating because I feel like I'm grinding to provide.
This is my father's pattern again. Not rage this time—withdrawal. When pressure hits, Casado men pull away from their families to "provide." Different expression, same autopilot.
The Excel Sheet Promise
I showed her projections. Excel sheets done by Ivy League MBA's. Cost breakdowns, multi-million dollar financials, token distributions, equity splits. Years mapped out: 2020, 2022, 2024 and beyond. The future looked bright on paper.
Then you exhaust the credit cards. Buy only necessities (and there's ALWAYS many at Amazon). Give the best life within your means, but "means" becomes smaller and smaller.
The truth I'm sitting with: I'm grinding, and she's supporting. Not "we're" grinding. She didn't choose blockchain in 2015. She chose ME, and this became her life by proximity.
She met me when I was at another crossroads and messy in 2014-2015.
Likewise, she saw me at extreme transitions. And stayed.
Now, I've been promising "it's coming" for years. And she's still here. Still believing, or trying to believe. Still making our home feel like love while I work late into the night.
The Sweetness I'm Missing
Money can't buy what we have (but it sure does make it easier in all other aspects).
Our love makes a home. We inspire others without trying to. Our place is cozy even with toys scattered everywhere. We're giving our son the best life we can create together.
But I'm so focused on what money COULD provide that I'm not fully present in what we HAVE.
The caramelization isn't in the breakthrough. It's in the bond forged through uncertainty, financial stress, seeing me at my absolute lows—and choosing to stay.
That creates something money can't buy. A foundation that won't crack when success finally comes because it was built during the pressure, not after.
The Patience I Haven't Practiced
Caramelization requires low, sustained heat. Not intensity. Not rushing. Not high-heat bursts trying to force sweetness faster.
I've been treating my marriage like a problem to solve AFTER success instead of a relationship to tend DURING the grind.
The hugs I'm not giving because I'm not where I expected to be. The hand-holding I'm skipping because "our child takes that time." The presence, I'm deferring because "once things break through, THEN I'll be available."
That's burning the onions.
The sweetness develops through showing up. Through hugging her even when I feel inadequate. Through being present even when my mind is calculating how to make money. Through recognizing that the HOME she's creating with me IS the caramelization—not what comes after, but what's happening now.
What Money Can't Rush
Relationships that survive poverty often don't survive wealth. But what about relationships that survive the endless grind—no poverty relief AND no wealth arrival yet?
What caramelizes in a partnership where she sees you stressed, financial uncertainty, working after 10:30pm after your son sleeps—and doesn't leave?
Trust that can't be faked. Love that isn't contingent on outcomes. A bond built on "I see you struggling, and I'm staying" rather than "I'm here for the success."
That's the sweetness. And it's developing on low heat, sustained over years, whether I'm paying attention or not.
This Week's Peel
What sweetness are you rushing that actually requires patience?
Maybe it's not the business breakthrough you're forcing. Maybe it's the relationship you're neglecting while grinding for the breakthrough.
Maybe the caramelization you're desperate for is already happening—in the home your partner creates, in the patience they're showing, in the foundation being built through pressure rather than success.
Low heat. Sustained presence. No rushing.
That's how sweetness develops. In onions. In marriages. In lives built together through uncertainty.
This week, notice: What are you deferring until "after success" that actually needs your presence NOW? The hug, the conversation, the acknowledgment. What if the sweetness isn't waiting for you in the breakthrough—it's developing in the patience you practice today?
The "Being Coached" Layer: The Living Proof of Progress
This week, Dr. Goodman says, began this read by sharing a profound personal anchor: "Today is my 25-year sobriety anniversary." He revealed that 25 years ago, he was taken by fire rescue and Baker Acted, yet his wife, Sally, stood by him. He sees your story—the sustained grind and the faithful partner—reflected in his own path, validating that your model truly will work out.
He explained that the high-heat failure that led to his Baker Act was born from everything he hadn't yet done and the mess he'd made of what he had. He emphasized: "I am the living, breathing truth that it can happen." The caramelization you are describing is the skill you are cultivating to become a better chef. Your son won't remember the grind; he will remember the caramelized outcome. Dr. Goodman affirmed: "You are succeeding, and this is what it looks like. Give yourself a break and let it in."
Bookshelf Peeled - Resisting the Productivity Burnout
This week's insight comes from Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber's The Slow Professor. While geared toward academia, the book's core lesson is highly relevant: It argues for resisting the institutional speed-up—the expectation to produce constantly and intensely, sacrificing deep work and personal presence for measurable, rushed output.
The lesson for The Caramelization Layer is clear: The "speed-up" model is exactly the high heat that burns the onions. Your rush to force the breakthrough (the multi-million dollar Excel sheet promise) is the productivity burnout consuming your marriage. The book validates that slow, sustained presence in life—what you call low heat—is required for genuine complexity, deep reflection, and the sweetness of relationships. You must reject the high-heat compulsion to produce and choose the difficult, slow work of being present.
The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy
Design Rebel: The Foundation During the Grind
This week was inspired by my wife's perspective; it was her turn to share her side of the story, which she happily approved. (She wasn't to happy with the regular head and onion body that made her look pregnant, which is not the case!) I used Leonardo.ai for the renders and some unusual videos, which I incorporated nonetheless. I finished some scenes with Veo 3.1. The script was a collaboration between Gemini and me, and the voice narration was done using ElevenLabs. It was edited in Wondershare Filmora.
Weekly Inspired Insights I liked or found useful this week:
Hormozi advocates for the temporary, all-in intensity of a sprint, but without guidance from a mentor or someone who has successfully done it, that season easily becomes an unsustainable forever grind. The essential lesson is that experienced guidance provides the crucial objective permission to define a clear sprint season and to pivot before intensity burns into a permanent, fruitless loop.
P.S. If this resonates with you, share it with someone. I'm dedicated to helping fellow explorers—or anyone who found this page—uncover their authentic self with humor and insight. We're all in this together, finding the courage to truly live from our core essence (or as close as we can get!).
The Companion Layer: Who You Grow Best Beside (tentative)
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