Hey Reader 👋🏻,

For a good decade, my personal growth journey felt like playing an endless video game. I was hooked on 'leveling up,' collecting those glittering gold coins.
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Life, it seemed, was about chasing more—more achievements, more success, more recognition. But then came the game-changer, my daughter.

Her arrival marked a shift in the gameplay. The pursuit of 'more' lost its appeal. Instead, my quest evolved into an infinite game—one without a finish line or a victory, but a continuous journey focused on sustaining growth and adaptability.

Because of this newfound purpose, my habits became more than just personal routines. They were now life lessons for this curious little observer 👀

You see, our kids are always watching and modeling after us.
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​This means both our bad habits and our good habits will show up with them. If your kids see you not taking care of yourself, that’s the standard they will create for themselves.

Model, don't preach.

We all have heard the saying “do as I say, not as I do”.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.

Children are mirrors. They will mirror back, whatever they see from us. So when you’re going about your life I want you to imagine your actions as little life lessons. Are you teaching the lessons you want to teach?

A good example of this is smoking. I have extended family members that are lifelong smokers, yet they have always told their children not to smoke. Guess what happened?

You guessed it. Their kids are now smokers as well 🙄

I’ve talked before about treating life like a video game where we are building up our character traits. Well if we use this same analogy for our kids — what traits do we want them to have when they grow up?​
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1. Write down the list of traits (patient, kind, strong, independent, etc)

2. Figure out what challenges/behaviors they would need to experience in order for them to gain those skills.

3. Start modeling these skills for yourself 🙃

Personal example: I want my daughter to be self-sufficient, independent, and capable.

How do I do that? I'm trying to model that by showing up this way myself. One small way is that last night I decided to build some lawn furniture (a Prime Day purchase) and brought her out to “help” me.

This served a dual purpose. First was to give my wife some time to work in peace, while also showing my 15-month-old daughter some self-sufficiency in action.

Now I won’t lie, between carrying pieces of the furniture to the other side of the yard and playing hide-and-go-seek with the bolts she wasn’t very helpful. But she thought she was helping which was the point. The look on her face when we (😉) built it was worth it.

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TLDR; By teaching my daughter how to build things she won't be impressed by your dusty son's IKEA skills 😂​
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Takeaway: Model the behavior that you’d like your kids (real or imaginary) to emulate — I promise both of you will be better off from it.

Pay attention to:

• Your attitude; are you showing up positively?
​• Your tone; are you speaking kindly about yourself and others
​• Your discipline; are you doing the hard things?
​• Your presence; are you distracting yourself w/ your phone?
​• Your time — how are you spending it? would you want your kid doing the same thing?

Podcast Interview on Business Partnerships

I never listen to my own podcast interviews. The sound of my own voice makes me cringe too hard 🙈 (you might know that feeling).

But several people told me this episode of “I don’t know anything” was one of the best interviews I've done so if you're interested in hearing my opinion on partnerships, co-founder dynamics, and other things you can listen here.

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AI Tool (you'll actually want to use)

I stumbled across the most helpful AI tool (outside of chatGPT). It’s called audiopen — it turns messy thoughts into clear text.
Been using it daily to do things like:
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• turn voice notes into action items (you can upload audio)​
• distill thoughts into content ideas
• summarize calls
• giving feedback
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The UI is also so clean that it's an absolute joy to use 😍.
If you like talking instead of writing, it could be helpful for you Reader!

Fitness lifehack

Here's a super simple trick that helped me lose 35lbs+
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1. Pick a TV show (or podcast) — the more binge-worthy the better
2. Rule: You can watch/listen only when you’re working out​
3. Workouts will be more fun which will make you more consistent

Consistency = Progress 📈

For me I've been using podcasts as my media of choice while I workout. I use the Tonal, but with the volume turned down and my earphones in to listen to podcasts.
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I’ve been doing this since back when I was in Architecture school (without realizing it). One year I didn’t have access to a TV so I would go to the gym at specific times to be able to watch shows I liked while on the treadmill 😛

Media Recommendations:

• Silo on Apple TV is excellent.

• Pretend — Season 12.
I’ve only listened to season 12 as it was recommended to me. It is absolutely WILD. It’s a true-crime podcast about real people pretending to be someone else. This specific series involves a stalking case and I already know you are not prepared for the level of crazy this brings Reader!!
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​This podcast is the only reason why my garage got organized this weekend 😂
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Have a great rest of your week Reader!
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— Cathryn

P.S. Use this script to get late fees waived (real example I just used on AMEX for a $39 refund)​

Pic of the week:

Enjoying the cold plunge with some friends while it's 105 degrees outside. This is the only thing keeping me sane 🥵