Hey Reader,

I’m writing this from my office in Colmar. Outside it’s full of lights and people and Christmas energy. Inside it’s quiet. I’ve spent a lot of time here lately. Maybe too much. Thinking, planning, doubting, trying to convince myself I know what I’m doing. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t always feel like rest. Sometimes it feels like holding my breath.

A few days ago I had a moment that stayed with me.
I went to visit a new friend who carves spoons in his spare time. He has a small workshop on a hill, and when I stepped inside it felt like being a kid again. We showed each other our tools the way children show each other toys. His kids came in and out with cookies and questions. And then something simple happened. I sat down and worked on a single spoon and fell into a kind of flow I haven’t felt in months.

Five hours disappeared. I forgot to drink water and never checked my phone. For a few hours the weight I’ve been carrying just slipped away. When I left, I felt full of energy. I can still see the wood shavings on the floor of his workshop. I noticed one stuck to my sleeve later in the car and it made me smile. It felt like a reminder of something I had almost forgotten.

The truth is, building this business has been lonely lately.
I keep learning, reading, trying to follow the next idea or the next tactic, and I can feel myself getting tired. Not physically. Tired in the way you get when you stay too long in your own head. The more I try to do this alone, the more I lose the spark that made me want to build something in the first place.

I shine when I work with people.
I know that. Yet most of the last two years have been spent behind a screen, recording alone, writing alone, trying to figure everything out by myself. When you stack too many days like that, you start to believe you’re supposed to carry the whole thing without support. It becomes heavy. It follows you into your home and into your family.

Talking to friends these days, I noticed something strange. Many of them think I have everything figured out. They see the travel, the photos, the nice moments. And sometimes I look at people with regular jobs and imagine their life must be easier. It’s funny how we can all stand on the wrong side of the window and believe the view is better from there.

This weekend helped me see something I didn’t want to admit.
I’ve been trying so hard to follow other people’s paths that I forgot what brings me alive. And if I lose that, then what am I even building. I don’t want a business that empties me. I want a life that gives my family the best of me, not the scraps that are left at the end of the day.

Somewhere in the middle of all this noise, one thing became clear.
I’m not a seller. I’m a guide. The work that feels true is helping someone take the next step. Not ten. Just the one that brings clarity again. Maybe that is enough. Maybe that is the real job. Helping someone find their footing on the part of the road they’re standing on now. Then trusting they will know what to do when they reach the next turn.

If you are reading this, maybe you are in your own version of this place.
Excited and overwhelmed. Wanting to build something of your own but unsure where to start. Feeling the weight of your family on one side and the pressure to succeed on the other. Wondering if you’re already behind. I know that feeling well. I live close to it more often than I admit.

I don’t know where this letter lands for you.
Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it is the small reminder you needed today. For me it feels like coming back to my own voice. The voice I tried to quiet so I could sound more like everyone else. I don’t want that anymore.

So here I am, writing from Colmar, still unsure, still searching, still hopeful.
If something in this speaks to you, write me back.
Let’s not do this part alone.

One dad figuring it out, same as you.
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