Years of scaling startups, and leading teams.

For years, I rode the productivity treadmill — launching products, scaling startups, and leading teams at high-growth companies like Meta and Shopify. I built meaningful things.

But somewhere along the way, I lost myself in the hustle.

I believed hard work was the answer to everything. Growing up as an immigrant, watching my family sacrifice for a better life, I internalized that work meant survival.

Success meant pushing through exhaustion, ignoring intuition, and grinding relentlessly.

Then, I burned out.

The Unraveling

It wasn't sudden, but a slow unraveling—physical exhaustion, emotional depletion, and deep disconnection.

My body sent warning signs: brain fog, chronic fatigue, stress-related illnesses. My mind spiraled with overthinking and anxiety. Even at the peak of external success, I felt hollow inside.

I knew something had to change. But I didn't know how.

The Journey to Transformation

So, I stepped away from everything I knew — the startup world, relentless optimization, productivity hacks — and spent months reconnecting with myself.

I immersed myself in Eastern medicine, energy healing, meditation, breathwork, Taoism, and Qi Gong. I trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Kundalini Yoga, energy healing, and more.

Most importantly, I learned to listen to my body and manage my energy. Shaking off the forced productivity I have been forced to live with for years.

I learned not about doing less or being “lazy”…it’s about doing what feels expansive instead of draining.

The Invisible Cost of How You Work

In startups, there’s a common mindset: move fast, grind it out, hustle harder. I lived by it.

Mark Zuckerberg famously said, “Move fast and break things.”

When I joined Facebook in 2018, this motto wasn’t just an idea—it was printed in my welcome workbook and displayed on the walls.

In some ways, it made sense. Speed drives experimentation, iteration, and innovation. And I still agree with that — to an extent.

But when taken to the extreme, this obsession with rapid progress comes at a cost.

A culture that prioritizes speed over sustainability can lead to:

• Burnout—for individuals, teams, and entire companies.
• Short-term thinking—where impact is measured in quick wins instead of lasting value.
• Over-effort and urgency—where everything feels like a race, even when clarity is needed.

At Meta, I saw this play out in performance reviews. I was graded not just on the value of what I built, but on how fast I moved and how innovative my ideas seemed. Reviews every six months encouraged a super short cycle of innovation and product releases where the actual impact was hard to measure.

The result?

Either looking for the easy way out or burning to the ground.

Sometimes, speed became the goal rather than solving real user problems or ensuring the long-term success of a product.

It’s not just Meta.

Across Silicon Valley, I also watched as:

• Brilliant founders burned out before ever reaching their vision.
• High-growth companies collapsed under the weight of unsustainable practices.
• Talented designers, engineers, and product leaders lost their passion—not because they didn’t love what they did, but because of how they were doing it.

The real problem?

Misalignment isn’t always visible, but it has consequences.

Pushing for rapid growth without considering the human and strategic costs can lead to products, teams, and even entire companies breaking—not because they weren’t great, but because they were built on a foundation of urgency instead of sustainability.

It's Not What You Do—It's How You Do It

Working in Silicon Valley, and buying into productivity culture…

For years, I equated success with effort—counting hours worked, struggles endured, and grinding to get ahead.

But after coaching 150+ clients, working with high-performing teams, and experiencing burnout firsthand, I see it differently:

🔊 The way you approach your work matters as much as the work itself.

Two people can perform identical tasks—one with force and stress, the other with ease and clarity.

The difference in their results?

Massive. 💣

This is why alignment beats effort.

The Power of Effortless Action

Compare Silicon Valley’s obsession with hustle to Taoist wisdom:

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu

In Taoism, Wu Wei is the art of moving in flow with life rather than forcing things. It doesn’t mean doing nothing—it means trusting timing, intuition, and natural rhythms.

Moving with life, rather than against it.

When I studied Qi Gong and energy medicine, I saw how the body mirrors this principle.

Forcing tension creates resistance; releasing tension allows movement. The same applies to work.

So how can we truly embrace this concept of flow in the hustle culture of our current corporate and start-up environments?

Instead of forcing productivity, create an environment that supports flow — especially if you work for yourself or starting your own company and team.

In work, we often operate from a state of resistance—pushing through fatigue, forcing productivity, and over-structuring our days.

But when we align with our own natural energy cycles, work becomes something else entirely:

👁️ Instead of forcing focus, you create the conditions for focus.

🔋 Instead of pushing through exhaustion, you learn to pause and reset. Recharge and pick up tasks when you are fully present and full.

💥 Instead of obsessing over effort, you measure impact.

🎨 Work should flow from creativity, not anxiety and scarcity.

This is the art of working smarter—not as hustle culture defines it.

But in harmony with your mind, body, and energy.

The Energy Behind Your Work Shapes Its Outcome

There’s a subtle but powerful shift that happens when you move from force to flow, from stress to clarity, from pushing to intention.

In startups, product teams, and creative work, I've seen this firsthand:

❌ The founder who operates from urgency and pressure makes reactive decisions, burns out, and loses perspective.

✅ The founder who moves with clarity, focus, and alignment builds momentum naturally, attracting the right opportunities and people.

The same applies to anyone navigating career growth, business, or creative projects:

❌ When you work from depletion, your work drains you.

✅When you work from alignment, your work energizes you.

Success isn't just about what you do—it's about the energy you bring to it!

From Work as Struggle to Work as Flow

When I let go of over-effort and overthinking, I began working differently:

🍃 Tuning into energy rhythms.

• Instead of rigid schedules, I worked with my natural focus cycles.

🔋 Managing energy instead of time.

• The old-school idea of grinding for hours is outdated. Instead, identify your peak energy hours and schedule deep work accordingly.
• Batch admin tasks for low-energy periods (afternoons for most people).
• Take movement breaks to sustain energy (a walk, stretching, breathwork).

🔮 Creating space for intuition.

• Instead of constant analysis, I let clarity emerge by removing distractions. This means spending time in nature.
• Spending weekends without the phone.
• Daily meditation, or sound and gong baths.

🧿 Shifting from over-effort to ease.

• Instead of grinding through misaligned work, I started asking: "What would this look like if it were easy?"

This wasn't about avoiding work. It was about creating conditions for effortless execution. ✨

Beyond Productivity Hacks: The Inner Shift That Changes Everything

Most productivity advice centers on systems, tools, and strategies—but the real transformation isn't about external tactics. It's about your relationship with work.

TRUST ME - I KNOW!

You should see my NOTION documentation, with different organization and planning tricks.

👉 Instead of optimizing for effort → optimize for alignment with your purpose and energy flow.

👉 Instead of controlling every outcome → trust timing and flow.

👉 Instead of forcing productivity → focus on removing friction.

👉 Instead of putting in more hours → bring yourself into the most focused, energetic state

The result?

• More clarity. 🔎
• Better decisions. 🔑
• Sustainable success. 💯

📌 Align your work style with your natural tendencies, rather than fighting them.

What If Success Didn't Have to Feel Like a Struggle?

For years, I believed success meant pushing through exhaustion.

Now, I see it differently.

Success comes from clearing resistance—internally and externally—so work flows rather than grinds.

Because, how you do something determines what you get from it.

So, what's one small shift you can make today—not in what you do, but in how you do it? 🔥