Scott-Vincent Borba lived a life that would have gotten thousands of likes on social media. He was the co-founder of e.l.f. Cosmetics, the brand now worth about $3 billion, giving $7,000 diamond facials to Mila Kunis, partying with Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, and driving an Aston Martin convertible down the California coast. By every standard that modern culture told him to care about, he had made it. However, he was miserable.
“I was at a party, and I was very, very unhappy,” Borba told OSV News. “I just felt like I was empty. I was exhausted. I was burning the candle on both ends."
On May 23, Borba, 52, will be ordained as a Catholic priest by the Diocese of Fresno in his hometown of Visalia, California, after giving away his entire fortune, his beach house, and yes, the Aston Martin to charity. His wall decoration at St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park? Just a crucifix.
The party that broke him
Borba co-founded e.l.f. Cosmetics in 2004 with Alan and Joseph Shamah. By 2014, the cruelty-free makeup brand was hitting $100 million in sales, a must-have for drugstores and beauty routines across America. He left the company in 2019, years before Hailey Bieber sold her Rhode label to e.l.f. for $1 billion in 2025.
For decades, he’d ignored a quiet voice. Then one day, he left an industry party feeling empty, tired, and doubting everything. His mother had first directed him towards the priesthood in the third grade. Instead, he chose Beverly Hills.
However, burnout has a way to make you listen.
Why this story hits differently for millennials
If you are in your mid-20s to early 40s, Borba’s crisis probably doesn’t sound too alien. It could sound like your typical group chat.
According to a 2023 survey by Deloitte, 77% of millennials have experienced burnout in their current role, and 42% have left a job due to burnout. Burnout is hitting employees in their mid-20s, a full 17 years earlier than previous generations.
The hustle was supposed to be worth it, but for many, the payoff has been less satisfying than they’d hoped.
What nobody wants to admit at a networking event is that the pursuit of material success may be quietly eating away at your well-being.
Research published in Personality and Individual Differences shows that materialism, such as putting wealth, status, and possessions at the center of your life, always damages psychological well-being. The research showed that people who place a higher value on external goals like money and looks than on internal satisfaction are more likely to suffer anxiety, depression, and dissociation even after they attain those goals.
Aston didn’t let Borba down; it was the belief that the Aston Martin would be enough that failed him.
Letting go and actually meaning it
Borba believed that selling one car would be enough when he felt the calling to make a change. It wasn’t.
He said, laughing, "God called me to give up everything, and I thought that meant just my cars. So I had an Aston Martin convertible, and I said, 'All right, Lord, I'm gonna sell this car, give the money to charity,' but He said, 'Give it all up.'"
So, Borba did. The cars, the money, the beach house in California, all of it, he donated.
He lives in a small seminary room and says he has never been happier. "My life has been culled down to the bare minimum," he said. "I have never been happier in my life."
You don’t need to be a priest, but perhaps listen to what you’re avoiding
Most of us are not being called to the seminary, but Borba’s story leaves us with an important question to think about: what are you chasing and why?
The grind culture of millennial ambition, the side hustles, and the pressure to optimize every hour were sold as a ticket to freedom. For many, it has become a treadmill. The Deloitte data indicates that millennials are facing burnout. Psychology research tells us that material success alone doesn’t fill the gap.
In third grade, Borba heard a quiet voice and spent decades talking himself out of it. His turning point came at a party where everyone looked successful, and no one felt anything.
Yours may be different, but the question behind his story is universal: what do you really want your life to be about when you finally stop running?
