DKC Field Notes
Field Notes
Entry 1
Reflections on Rest
Why Rest is So Difficult
My friend (and former coach) Minnow and I always debated the importance of rest. He would discuss its importance and how it’s just as productive as exercise or work.
While I understood this logically, it never sat well with me.
To me, rest was not a practice or a productive use of time but a reward. It was reserved for those who earned it – for the founders who had a big exit or the retired folks who worked all their lives.
Not belonging to either of those groups, I felt undeserving of rest.
I’m of the belief that when you’re just getting started and in the early stages of building a company, you probably won’t get to rest. You’re in survival mode. But you can only go full steam for so long before you run out of juice.
I’ve been running pretty hard for the last 4 years.
In fact, until this past month, I’d never taken more than a week off of work in my 10 years of working. (This is not a flex).
After securing a full-time job and fully transitioning out of my former work situation, I was able to take a real vacation.
My best friend was getting married in Hawaii, and we made a trip out of it.
It felt deeper than a vacation in a lot of ways.
For me, it was a reset—a rebirth, even? It was poetic in that I was returning to my place of birth after more than 20 years and after a long and difficult journey as a founder.
The best way to describe my time away was that I sank into it. I let myself be immersed in the stillness and the sand.
So, to answer my own question. Why is rest so difficult?
Rest is difficult for competitive, ambitious people because it appears counterintuitive to the mission. How does it make sense to slow down when everything around you demands more of you?
This is why rest, like exercise, good nutrition, and relationships, is a practice and a discipline and not a reward.
It’s a tool in the toolbox of ambitious people to go further for a longer period of time.
The ego wants us to believe that rest is a luxury afforded only to the elite, whereas I believe the top performers prioritized rest, and it helped them get to the top.
Less mind fucks and more sandy beaches.