Picture this: It’s 2:47 AM. I’m sitting in my room, baby feeding on my left boob, scrolling through Instagram like it’s going to solve my problems. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. Instead, I’m watching some 28-year-old entrepreneur tell me I’m “playing small” in my business while a fitness influencer promises I can “bounce back” to my pre-pregnancy body in 8 weeks, and a sleep consultant explains why I’m already failing my newborn. Suddenly, I feel like I have all these problems- and the anxiety kicks in.
This is my current reality
- My dad’s funeral flowers are still wilting on my kitchen counter.
- My mom asks me three times where the bathroom is because her dementia is slowing stealing her memories.
- My business feels like it’s held together with duct tape and prayers after losing half my team members.
And I’m supposed to “bounce back” and shed 40lbs in 2 months?
Here’s what nobody tells you about rock bottom:
It’s not dramatic. It’s not a movie moment where you collapse and someone catches you. It’s 1,000,000 tiny fires burning simultaneously while you’re expected to smile, show up, and “have it all together.” It’s realizing that your anxiety isn’t actually about the chaos around you—it’s about the chaos inside you.
The brutal truth I learned at 2:47 AM:
Anxiety isn’t fear of losing control. Anxiety is the absence of clarity and structure when you need it most. When you don’t know what you want, everything feels urgent. Every notification feels like a crisis. Every expert’s opinion feels like judgment. But when you get crystal clear on your priorities? When you build structure around what actually matters? The noise becomes… just noise.
So here’s how I went from drowning in anxiety to designing my comeback:
1. I deleted the drug dealer (aka social media) Social media is ad platform. It is designed to make you feel inadequate so you’ll buy solutions to problems you didn’t know you had. While I’m bleeding postpartum and grieving my father, Instagram wants to sell me a $20k coaching program to “scale my business to 7-figures in 3 months” and a postpartum supplement to “fix my hormones.” Hard pass. 2. I traded influencers for philosophers Instead of consuming content designed to make me buy, I started consuming wisdom designed to make me think. Marcus Aurelius over morning motivation posts. Viktor Frankl over productivity hacks. Maya Angelou over manifestation mantras. Books don’t have an agenda. They have answers. They have new ideas. New perspectives. 3. I built my village (and stopped apologizing for it) Right now, as I write this, there are 5 people in my house:
- My homeschool teacher with my older kids
- My house manager meal-prepping and organizing
- My cleaner deep-cleaning all the shit in the house
- My mother-in-law rocking my baby to sleep
- My mom folding tiny onesies
Some people call this privilege. I call it strategy. You can’t build an empire while drowning in laundry and dirty dishes. You can’t serve your clients while your kids are asking for snacks every 12 minutes.
The real plot twist?
My business didn’t collapse when I took 2 months time off. My team didn’t fall apart when I stepped back. My kids didn’t suffer when I asked for help. The only thing that suffered was my ego—and honestly, it needed the humbling.
Here’s what I want you to know:
If you’re reading this at 2 AM, feeling like you’re one crisis away from a breakdown, you’re not broken. You’re not behind. You’re not failing. You’re human, navigating an inhuman amount of pressure. The answer isn’t to do more, be more, or optimize more. The answer is to get clear on what matters, build structure around those priorities, and stop consuming content that profits from your insecurity. Your anxiety isn’t a character flaw—it’s a compass pointing toward what needs your attention. Listen to it. Then build around it. P.S: if you need clarity AND structure to become financially free in your 30s (or early 40s), respond to this email with the word “COACH” and let me see if I can help you fast track your road to financial freedom. P.S. - It’s been 3 day since I’ve been back to Thailand and it feels glorious to have a team of paid helpers to manage my life! I get to bath in newborn cuddles without having to do never-ending laundry, cooking, and cleaning. And I get to write newsletter and create content without having to worry about who’s watching my kids. Sometimes the breakdown is actually the breakthrough in disguise.
Ask yourself- what’s one thing you could eliminate today that’s feeding your anxiety instead of your soul? Figure it out- and kick it to the crub. Unconventionally. Yours, Sam