What is up everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and CEO of Morning Brew, and welcome back to Founders Journal,

My Daily Audio Diary made public for the world where every day I will give you the listener a backstage pass into

building Morning Brew to help you think better in order to build better.

And today we are talking about why there's actually things in life outside of work.

Let's hop into it.

So as I mentioned a minute ago I'm currently in the beautiful New England town of Lennox, Massachusetts.

Super random, but it's not that random of a reason. My girlfriend and I are here for our two year anniversary.

We decide to do a little retreat.

We're uncomfortable with flying, given everything going on with COVID.

So we drove up here to this spa in the Berkshires and have taken off today and tomorrow and are just going to be rejuvenating and relaxing.

And I think there's a few things to call out here.

One is that as I have, you know,

over the last four years, been involved in Morning Brew,

I have always found it extremely difficult and extremely stressful to take time off.

And I don't know of other people feel the same way when they take time off that they find it difficult to enjoy that time.

But over the last several years, it's always been tough for me where I haven't taken much time off at all

because I always justify that I love the work I'm doing so why would I take time off?

But in my mind that's oftentimes just a cop out for a deeper just anxiety around taking time off.

Why do I think I have found taking time off stressful?

Well I think it actually goes back to yesterday's episode on defining productivity.

And for me, I think that because I've always or intuitively defined productivity is actually like getting shit done, pushing stuff out and having to show for yourself, you know, checking a box off the to-do list or sending a deliverable in, like the act of doing things.

To me, I think I feel a sense of anxiety when the momentum or the flow of doing things stops.

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