Not Everything is a Hustle

There’s more than one way to be a founder.

This Sunday, I made the mistake of opening LinkedIn.

Among the usual weekend calm, a post caught my eye. A young founder proudly explaining how every morning before heading to the office, he cold-DMs 15 people. Every day. Rain or shine.

He then listed all the amazing outcomes of this habit: high-paid jobs, startup funding, conference invites, customer meetings, top hires, you name it.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

So I reshared their post, wrote this instead, and published it on LinkedIn:

Every morning before I head to my home office,
I bring my kids to school.
It’s literally the single most important habit I’ve built.
Want to learn how I do it?
Comment “school” and I’ll tell you my secret.

Boom. Thousands of views.

Because here’s the truth: not everyone is under 30, lives in San Francisco, works at a startup with no users that raised millions, and spends their weekends writing cold emails to VCs and their evening eating pizzas with the team, crushing the latest release.

Some of us are in our 40s.

Some of us are building real companies.

Some of us are taking our kids to school, going for a run at lunch, playing music on the weekends, and still—yes, still—shipping, raising, hiring, and growing.

We don’t brag about skipping meals or sleeping 4 hours.

We don’t show our productivity hacks on a treadmill desk.

We don’t post about cold-DMing 15 people a day.

We just don’t need to turn every moment into content.

So if LinkedIn makes you feel like you’re not doing enough, or not doing it right, just know this:

You’re not alone. You’re not late.

And success can look very, very different.

Take a breath. Pick up your kids. Go for that run.

Enjoy the ride.