Zoom in vs zoom out and submission to life | #31

Conversations with friends

I am writing this having just spent the evening at the sauna with my community. Lately writing this newsletter has been a bit of a struggle. I am going through a bout of overthinking and wondering why I even bother putting this out every two weeks. But thankful for the friends who are constantly replying to my newsletter via email or sending me messages through other channels (What’s App, Facebook messenger etc) saying they love reading my newsletter. It’s really nice to feel like friends all over the world can connect into my life.

Zoom in vs zoom out

Last week a very dear friend of mine was in London and we managed to catch up for breakfast. She’d been working on a company to decarbonise manufacturing things like wood, cement etc and had raised an oversubscribed seed (or pre-seed, I can’t remember) round. You can listen to her talk about her company and vision here.

As a chronic over-thinker, one thing I asked Leise was how she felt certain enough she wanted to do this venture and what was the path in her arriving there. She told me two things which I thought was quite inspirational:

1. She had set herself an audacious and seemingly unattainable goal a few years ago of doing an ironman, as someone who’d not even run a half-marathon before. Once she’d set on that goal, she no longer thought about why she was doing it, whether she was doing it for the right reasons or question her decisions. She’d steered her ship in that direction and each day she was putting one foot in front of the other to get there.

2. She also shared that once she had decided to build Pathways AI and to move back to Denmark, she’d also stopped questioning her decision. She was no longer zooming in and out on the decision. She said she’d check maybe once a year or so but the foundation was set and she wasn’t going back to the drawing board on that.

Committing to not overthink

Her sharing this inspired me to stop overthinking in moments when I question small decisions like why do I even bother with this newsletter, and other similar things. I decided that I want to be more like her in this way. Once I feel somewhat convicted by a direction, I just need to keep voting for the version of me that keeps moving that way. I think this applies to the following in my life right now:

• I want to be at 4-beat yoga three times a week, apart from when I am sick or exhausted, I don’t want to question whether I should go in the hour before class starts, I know I always feel good after I go.

• I want to be with my sauna community twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays, I don’t want to think about the long cycle (35 mins each way) and let that discourage me from showing up - I am just going to keep showing up.

• I want to continue writing this newsletter, sharing personal essays and musings on things, I don’t want to question why I do this. Friends enjoy it and I know I’ll regret it if I stop.

• I want to hit 10k steps each day - no questions, no digging into ‘why’, just know it typically means I get out of bed and outside to clock half the steps in the morning. This is always a good thing for me and my mental health.

Vision for your life

My other founder friend, in the crypto space, also shared with me some videos he came across about setting up a vision for your life. What do you want the 2025 version of you to be like? Where do you want your life to go? Write that down and work towards it.

He also talked about this notion of ‘submission’ which is rather than fighting ourselves or tensing ourselves into something we want to do, ease into the thing we know we need to do. Submission is just relaxing into the thing that feels right for you, then it suddenly becomes easy rather than a fight.

What feels important to me?

My job hunt has got me thinking about these questions and landed me on the following: ultimately I am more drawn to people I admire, respect and want to be around more than to any particular industry. I want to work closely with people on an idea I believe in and to feel like we are pushing the boundaries to make it happen.

I was recently asked what inspires me, that was an easy one to answer as they tie to my values:

1. Curiosity - seeing and experiencing new things in new ways and this even includes developing new perspectives of ways of seeing things

2. Truth - seeking it, living it, being with it through the company of other truth seekers and truth livers

3. Community - being in the company of folks I respect and trust in life and work

All from me this week,

Caryn