Forget About Your Life Plan
What do you do when the life you thought you had all figured out falls apart after you discover your best friend was murdered on a rooftop one Monday morning?
No seriously, I'm asking. Any tricks or tips?
Get on the Waitlist
Join the waitlist and I'll send you Pava's “Forget About Your Life Plan” — the Johns Hopkins speech that named this book. You'll be the first to know the moment it's out.
What It's About
Forget About Your Life Plan is the story of my evolving friendship with Pava LaPere — a 5-foot-2 giant who swept me up in her orbit and changed the trajectory of my life. It begins in 2017, when I arrived in Baltimore as a Venture for America fellow, and it ends in 2025, on the other side of grief, with a new understanding of what it means to build — and why.
Along the way it takes a tour through Baltimore and its ecosystem — a student entrepreneurship program at Johns Hopkins, COVID-era initiatives to support local business, a high-growth startup called EcoMap Technologies — and then reckons with the aftermath of a murder that rocked a city, and what it means to build a legacy.
Pava was a prolific writer. After she died, I went back through all of it — her Medium essays, EcoMap speeches, and the personal journal entries her family entrusted to me — and wove her voice through every chapter. She is a co-author of this book in more than spirit; Pava is alive in these pages.
Half of all proceeds go to the foundation established in Pava's memory by her father, Frank.
Coming out Fall 2026 from Manuscripts Press.