Founder Stories: Fitness as an Anchor

10 weeks ago, I woke up at 4:30 AM having a panic attack.

My relationship was ending at the same time my CTO had quit. My team and I needed to rebuild the product from scratch.

My inbox was a ticking time bomb of urgent matters. That’s when it hit me; my work-life balance had toppled over.

I’m still early on my journey, but fitness has become my anchor.

The Struggle

In a startup, there is always more to do. I was a workaholic. I didn’t realize yet that sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing. There’s a famous Italian saying, “Dolce far Niente”, which means “the sweetness of doing nothing.” It does not refer to being lazy, it refers to the similar saying “take the time to smell the roses” and the pleasure one gets from being idle.

There was no dolce far niente in my life.

The Turning Point

Between the high caffeine levels and the low sleep hours, I was running on fumes.

One evening, after an especially grueling day, I stared at my running shoes gathering dust in the corner. It was a slap-in-the-face kind of moment. I realized you don’t need to perform a grand gesture to start — you just need to take the first step, literally.

So, I laced up those shoes and went for a short run. I didn’t break any records, but I broke the routine, and that’s what mattered.