What are you making room for?

One morning last week, my phone reported that it was merely 61 degrees here in DC. Walking my son to daycare, I couldn’t help but say out loud, “Ahhhh.” 

It’s fall, my friends, and I love it. 

This summer was a tough one, mostly due to family members’ health challenges that meant that I had to do a bit more offline work than I’d anticipated. Everyone is doing a lot better now, including me, to be honest. I wrote back in June that sometimes, you have to reset, and this summer showed me just how true that is. 

I don’t know if you’d call it burnout necessarily, but some form of exhaustion led me to quit a lot of things over the past couple of months. I stepped down from multiple nonprofit boards. I allowed my membership to several professional networking organizations to expire. I canceled magazine subscriptions I’d had for years. I announced my resignation from a high-ranking post at a prominent literary magazine. Wells Fargo canceled a credit card I hadn’t used in over five years and, at first, I was outraged (“Really, Wells Fargo, can you afford one more offense against a Black person?”), then I realized I was actually grateful. It was one less thing in my life. 

I found myself wanting—needing—simplicity. 

I told myself (and my therapists): “Instead of having my plate full of a bunch of small things, I want to be more available for the four Big Things: my spouse, my son, my work, and my writing.” 

Last September, I wrote in my newsletter, “Freedom is the opposite of fear.” 

My life today is an even greater testament of the benefit of letting go of what is no longer serving us: the need for legitimacy, the fear that we’re not in the right circles, the fear that if we’re not doing all the things then we’re not doing anything. 

Tell me: Is everything you’re doing in service to building your firm, establishing a healthy culture and flourishing team, and raising the amount of capital you want? What might be standing in the way? What is no longer serving you? Whatever it is, I encourage you to let it go, especially if it is the fear that you won’t actually meet your goals.

Make room for what you need most. For me, it was peace.   

Let me tell you, freedom feels wonderful. Especially when it comes with a crisp, fall breeze.