The Holidays Have Been Tough

The holidays have been especially tough for me.

A couple of weeks ago, I moved again out of SF back to Canada temporarily. This move was the hardest one yet and I think doing this over and over again has started to catch up with me.

It is hard to keep yourself in a certain mindset when everything is constantly shifting around you. Especially when you keep leaving the place you know is exactly where you need to be.

Beyond missing a truly great group of friends I have in SF, not being there also does have an inherent opportunity cost that you accept every time you leave.

The physical distance seems to amplify the mental weight of every decision, every pause, every moment of uncertainty.

This is just a small cherry on top of the fact that the holidays is generally a tough time for a lot of early stage startup founders.

Leading up to the holidays, you spend time building momentum, getting things into motion and start to pick up some steam. Things are starting to click, you are starting to see flickers of things finally beginning to move. Small wins start accumulating.

A promising partnership discussion here, a technical breakthrough there, the gradual validation that you might be onto something real.

But alas Thanksgiving hits and everything begins to flatline. No new deals, most people gearing up to wrap existing items and go into vacation mode.

You can continue to add internally but there isn’t much that is going to come externally. You can assume whatever you carry into the holiday period is what you are working with for the next month and a half.

And when everyday feels like it should carry some mark of progress, this can become especially frustrating. Continually building in the shadows until you can try picking up from where you left off. Forced to internalize again for a period of time.

This makes it especially hard for someone like myself. This feeling of things slowing down seems to feed into having more time for myself, something I don’t think I necessarily needed or want right now.

I don’t think I need any more time to reflect. Reflecting has been great to be more thoughtful and mindful for the way I have felt and the actions I take.

But too much reflection supports a constant line of questioning which feeds into a beast of anxiety and self doubt that every person carries with them. A lot of those questions don’t have answers and only adds to this feeling of unease about the future.

It makes me think about the things I am trading off in this pursuit. I keep repeating the same thing over and over again but is it even true? Is this willful ignorance setting me up to be disappointed later?

I am weary of this constant struggle, not because I am tired, but because it only seemingly leads towards more chaos. Are the ideas I lead my life with and openly endorse actually leading me somewhere or just leading me to a sense of vanity?

It is not asking these questions I see as a bad thing but its the constant repetition that inherently becomes counter productive because it makes you start to live life too seriously.

At the end of the day, the pursuit of clarity and the true meaning of our actions is only something we will be lifelong. So we might as well try to have some fun along the way.

So this holidays, while temporarily away from the place I know I need to be, I am looking forward to adding more explorations in my idle time.

Trying to build brand new things in different areas and to learn a lot.

Reading a bunch and thinking about our exciting future.

Building character and learning to stay a little patient.

And when the new year comes, I’ll hopefully return to SF with renewed energy, ready for things to start moving normally once again.

Knowing that this pause, like all the others, was just part of the journey.

Featured Events

Events that I host, will be at or think might be worthwhile to check out

?? - I plan to be there, feel free to say hi!

?? - I am hosting! Please feel free to swing by!

San Francisco

12/28 - Wearable Night: Holiday Party - Register

12/28 - Founders Running Club :: San Francisco - Register

01/08 - San Francisco AI Founder and VC Networking - Register

Toronto

12/29 - Clocktower Social Game pt. 7 @ Ben's - Register

01/08 - 7 & 8 Figure Agency Owners Private Breakfast - Register

01/16 - Automating Your Workflow With Agents - Register

New York

12/31 - "fun house" - #1 New Years Eve Party - for vc's, tech founders - Register

01/01 - SATELLITE LAUNCH - Register

01/07 - Everything But SaaS with SPC & USV - Register

Want to see your event here? Is there something going on that I should be highlighting? Feel free to reach out and I would be happy to feature them!

Check out this Podcast Episode!

You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Podcasts

In this episode of Building Blocks, we're joined by Michelle Stephens, Chief Revenue Officer at Felt and a pioneer in healthcare technology.

With a unique journey from pediatric nursing to tech entrepreneurship, Michelle shares her invaluable insights on bridging the gap between clinical care and technological innovation.

She discusses her experience co-founding Oath Care, a digital health platform leveraging AI for maternal and child healthcare, and her groundbreaking research on childhood stress and autonomic nervous system reactivity.

Michelle also opens up about her current work at Felt, the "ultimate care API," and her mission to transform healthcare delivery through technology.

Thanks for reading,

Daivik Goel