The cost came quickly, as he had known it would.

His mother refused to take his calls for weeks.

Several primary investors pulled their capital from ongoing projects.

Two major land acquisitions collapsed.

The company’s valuation dropped sharply, and the financial press, which had always been kind to the Stanford name, discovered a new tone.

Corbin held his course.

And he found, somewhat to his own surprise, that holding it was not the agony everyone around him seemed to expect.

He had assumed, all his life, that losing money would feel like losing a limb.