I'm about to become a father (and close my laptop)

Hey - Ole here.

We're expecting our first baby in the next 3 weeks.

I thought I'd be terrified by now. The sleepless nights, the responsibility, the complete life change everyone warns you about. But sitting here writing this, I feel something completely different.

Life is telling me to stop.

Not just for a few days or a long weekend. I'm talking about real time off, to be fully present for my son's arrival, to support my partner through this massive transition.

This year, I tried launching new business angles.

Explored different directions. But nothing felt like the thing to go all-in on yet. I kept pushing, kept searching, kept grinding.

But something shifted recently when I was reflecting on all this:

Maybe life is offering me this chance to zoom out and actually learn what pausing means.

The weird part? It doesn't feel scary or like I'm falling behind. It feels like exactly what I need to be doing right now.

So today, I want to share some thoughts I’ve collected on why taking a legit leave from work feels right to me right now…

don’t confuse motion for progress

If you're like me – constantly working, always figuring out the next move – it's an easy trap. You mistake being busy with being productive.

The more successful you become, the more stuff gets piled onto your plate. Suddenly it becomes damn near impossible to tell what's actually moving the needle versus what just crept into your schedule without any real impact.

When you never step away, you can't see the forest for the trees.

This is why pausing makes everything crystal clear. When you step back, you can reintroduce every single task with the "is this thing really moving the needle?" filter.

Most of it's just noise we've convinced ourselves matters.

the things that feel urgent rarely are, the things that matter rarely feel urgent

The product launch crisis that felt like the end of the world? Nobody even remembers it happened.

That competitor that was supposedly going to kill my business? They pivoted six months later.

Meanwhile, the stuff that actually moves your life forward:

• building real relationships

• taking care of your health

• being present for the people you love

…rarely comes with flashing red alerts or urgent deadlines.

Your body doesn't send you calendar invites to rest before you burn out. Your relationships don't ping you with notifications when they need attention.

The most important things whisper while the insignificant things scream.

success without presence is just expensive absence

You can build the biggest empire in the world, but if you can't be there for your kids when they need you, what's the point?

That's not winning. That's just well-funded absence.

Your child isn't going to remember your MRR. But they'll absolutely remember whether you showed up for the moments that mattered.

Look, I understand that not everyone has the luxury of stepping away. Some people have bills that can't wait and responsibilities that don't pause.

But in my case, I'm lucky enough to be able to pause (at least for a little bit) without everything falling apart.

That's exactly why I built my professional life the way I did. To have freedom when I really need it.

What's the point of financial freedom if you're not free to use it when life demands your presence?

sometimes life pauses you because you forgot how to pause yourself

Most A-type personality people (ambitious, driven, restless) don't choose to pause themselves.

Usually life pauses them forcefully through:

• Health crises that knock them flat

• Job loss that forces a reset

• Personal tragedy that puts everything in perspective

• Or in my case... a birth

When I really thought about it, I felt kind of ashamed by how hard it is for me to stop working. It's become this uncontrollable force inside me – this constant need to be building, optimizing, moving forward.

But now, for the first time in years, I actually feel called to let it rest. And it only happened because life is pausing me, not the other way around.

Life has a funny way of teaching us what we refuse to learn voluntarily.

am i productive vs am I aligned?

After spending so much time in grind mode with productivity apps and optimization hacks, I had to ask myself a different question: who do I want to become right now?

And right now, I want to be aligned with being a father and caregiver. I want to give that role my full attention.

Humans aren't machines, we’re more like lions.

It's completely normal to have sprints of intense productivity followed by periods of rest and refocus on other priorities.

The productivity obsession made me forget that alignment might be more important than output.

what are we doing all of this for, to begin with?

We're more biologically driven than we want to admit.

Making money is ultimately about status and survival.

All this hustle culture stuff? It's just modern caveman behavior dressed up in startup language.

But it's worth asking yourself what actually matters for survival right now.

My family won't be homeless if I close the laptop for awhile. So the most important thing for my family's survival isn't making more money for some imaginary future moment.

It's me being present with them during one of the most important transitions of our lives.

you can't bruteforce business ideas

I tried REALLY hard to figure out my next direction these past few months.

Researched trends, analyzed markets, forced myself through ideation sessions. But the perfect opportunity just didn't reveal itself, no matter how hard I pushed.

And that taught me something important: you can't force life, and you can't force business ideas.

The more you try to bruteforce inspiration, the more resistance you create. It's like trying to fall asleep (the harder you try, the more awake you become).

It sounds cliche as hell, but the best business ideas emerge when you're in flow with life, not fighting against its natural rhythm.

i know how to build businesses, but now I have to learn how to be a father

It's really hard to get good at many things simultaneously.

These past few years, I've spent all my energy becoming good at business. But my "being a father" skills are still at zero.

So I want to fully focus on developing that skillset because I know I'm a total beginner right now.

You can't half-ass being present for your kid's first months while trying to optimize conversion rates. One of them will suffer, and it shouldn't be your family.

no one ever told me they wished they worked more after their child's birth

I talked to a bunch of my dad friends about this whole pause thing.

Every single one said the same thing: they wished they had taken more time off to be with their child during those early months.

When everyone around you is telling you the exact same lesson, it's probably smart to listen and not make the same mistake they did.

best ideas come when you are not trying to have them

How many of your breakthrough moments happened while you were actively brainstorming versus when you were in the shower, on a walk, or just letting your mind wander?

The brain needs decompression time to make unexpected connections. When you're constantly in execution mode, you're operating from the same mental patterns that got you where you are.

But breakthrough ideas live outside those patterns.

I've decided to move more with what life gives me instead of constantly fighting against it.

I know I'll find my next thing to work on. But right now, that's not the priority.

I'm keeping a few small projects going – like writing this newsletter or recording one short video per day – but more as creative outlets than real work.

It's actually exciting to take time off so I can understand what parts of work I genuinely love doing versus what I do out of habit. (Spoiler: I love most of what I do daily, which is a good sign!)

I can't wait to come back with fresh perspective on what I want to attack next.

I'll keep writing this newsletter because I genuinely enjoy sharing these thoughts with you guys.

Thank you for over 2 years of support. I appreciate all of you.

Ole's Bookmarks

Amazing tutorial on how to use Veo3 to create video and Descript to agent-edit it. The future of video creation is getting wild.

This tweet captures exactly what I've been feeling about the whole hustle culture thing.

The Boom Founder Podcast - One of the most inspiring podcasts I've ever listened to. Do yourself a favor and listen to it.

See you next week 🫡 

Ole