This year, I've had a big realisation about what I care about.

Specifically, what I care about right now.

Last year, when I quit my job to build a business, one of my biggest motivations was to be able to have more time.

I was hustling at work, then hustling in my free time too, and after over 3 years of doing that, I got a bit tired of it.

I wanted to work on my own thing, and take days off when I wanted.

To stop work at 5pm. To have more free time outside of work. To have fewer calls. To go travelling.

And that's basically what I did in January 2025. I felt pretty relaxed.

So relaxed in fact that I had basically 0 calls for the whole month.

It was quite nice.

But then, I chose chaos.

I launched a coaching programme and immediately my calendar filled up with a lot more calls and tasks.

And the disconnection between why I quit my job, and what I was doing started to grow.

I became quite stressed quite quickly.

I still held on to this identity of "I don't work on weekends, I don't take calls after 5pm, I can take holiday whenever".

But my calendar and work didn't really reflect that.

I went away quite a lot, spent 6 incredible weeks in Mexico, took random days off here and there, and tried to fit the work in.

And I made progress, but last year I had this sense of "why am I working so hard, I left my job to have a more chill time".

And now I think I know why.

Because I want to...

I know, how shocking.

I thought I quit my job because I wanted to chill, to be able to wake up when I wanted, to start my day whenever, and be able to have long lunches and breakfast with friends.

And while I do want and value all of those things, I also feel super inspired to build right now.

To see what I'm capable of. And to make progress.

I've realised that right now I care more about progress and growth, than I do about freedom and peace.

I don't want to have tonnes of time off. I don't want a completely empty calendar. I don't want to be a solopreneur like Justin Welsh.

I want to know what happens when I apply myself to something for 5-10 years consistently. When I show up and do the work for a long time.

I think I've had some strange internal guilt over caring too much about the success of the business.

Like somehow that's a bad thing, and I shouldn't want to work too hard on it.

Almost like I've seen so much Hustle Bro content and toxic masculinity, I've internalised that it's actually not normal and I shouldn't want to throw myself into work.

Because I don't want to be toxicly masculine and want to work on my business!

How lame and generic would that be?

But right now I feel hungry and fired up. And that fire has been there for years now.

I always do my best to approach things with lightness, not get too attached to goals, and I also invest a lot in the other areas of my life.

But if I'm being completely honest with myself, I also really want to grow the business.

Because it's exciting and meaningful.

Progress, growth and building stuff you're passionate about is unbelievably fun (when it goes well).

When stuff doesn't go well, especially for a while, it does indeed suck. But if you stick with it for long enough usually some good stuff happens.

Here's to full sending.

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

If you're serious about building a multi 6-figure business from your channel, you might be interested in The $100k YouTuber.

Every single day I work closely with YouTubers in the programme to help them grow. It's the only thing I do.

You can learn more, see results and apply on this page here.

The $100k YouTuber Roadmap: read here​

My YouTube Channel: watch here​

Podcasts I've Done: watch here​