Life update (and early access)

Learning to say “no” is hard. It’s especially hard when you live in a digital world exposing you to exciting things constantly. Because of this, you might feel pressure to accomplish as much as you can. However, this mindset can drain you. It can extinguish the fire that got you started.

A few months ago, I confronted this problem. I was trying to accomplish a lot at the same time. I was managing my social media accounts while producing a podcast, newsletter and running a business. On top of that, I was doing all of this alone.

I couldn’t sustain this long term. Unknowingly, I was also hurting each of these projects because I couldn’t devote adequate time to any of them.

At first, I thought the solution was to be more productive. I tried to optimize my day the best I could. But in the end, the more productive I became, the more rushed I felt. It was almost like the more time I saved, the less time I had.

I felt like I was running on a hamster wheel, constantly moving yet going nowhere. Finally, I decided that this lifestyle wasn’t working and I needed to be more selective with my time.

Sometimes the goal isn’t to do more in less time. Sometimes the goal is to do less in more time. Because when you slow down — when you devote your limited resources to a select few things — you give yourself the opportunity to blossom. You can’t be everything, and attempting to be everything hinders you from becoming anything at all.

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After coming to this understanding, I decided to focus on my business the past 6 months. I realized I had been neglecting it for too long. Since then, Pool House New York (PH) has started to bloom. I hired my first person and together we’ve developed products and a business plan for the entire year. This was something I couldn’t imagine 6 months ago.

Last year, I didn’t have the bandwidth or energy to produce and sell products for PH. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time, the problem was I spent my time on too many different things.

You always have time, but it’s your choice what you want to devote your time to. Deciding what to spend your time on is hard and maybe you believe that the goal is to accomplish as much as you can. But on the contrary, the real goal is to savor the things you decide to do, it’s to nurture the budding plants around you.

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This is why l took a break on my newsletter and podcast last year. However, making this decision wasn’t easy. I was worried that if I let go, I would lose my newsletter and podcast forever; I was worried I would forget how to do them. The phrase “if you don’t use it, you lose it” rang in my head and it still does.

However, the business side of Pool House is finally coming together (we have our first product launch tomorrow), and I have a feeling the newsletter and podcast will come back in a new form once things settle down. I am confident that I haven’t forgotten how to do them either.

This made me realize that sometimes you need to let go of things you love. This doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. Things come back in mysterious ways. Because in the end, what is real will find a way.

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Early Access (Beanies)

Pool House New York’s first product launch is tomorrow. We will be releasing our “Make Today Enough” beanies in four colors (Blue, Green, Orange and Red).

Our inventory is limited and I want to give my newsletter subscribers early access. To purchase the beanies beforehand, type in the password (___) via this link.

I hope you enjoy! :)