I lied
I've been telling you this is about my kids. It's not.
Two issues in and I already owe you a correction. The bees story was true. The corporate story was true. My kids are 11 and 7 and the math is real and the clock is ticking and all of it — true.
But the 3pm is a lie.
Not how, but why.
A few weeks ago I was home on a Wednesday afternoon. Kids were still at school. My wife was out with her friend. The house was empty. I'd closed the laptop at 2:47pm because I'd finished what I needed for the day, and there was no one left to perform for.
No one to notice.
No one to be proud of "more work".
No audience.
I sat at the kitchen table and drank an afternoon coffee.
And I felt good. Not "good dad" good. Not "present father" good. Just good. The kind of good that has nothing to do with anyone else. The kind I hadn't felt on a weekday in a decade.
That's when it hit me. The kids weren't the reason I wanted out of the grind. They were the reason I let myself want out.
"I want to be home for my kids" is a sentence the world accepts. You say that at a dinner party and people nod. They respect it. Nobody asks follow-ups. It's noble. It's bulletproof.
"I want my afternoons back because I was miserable" — that one gets you side-eyes. That one sounds soft. Selfish. Like you couldn't handle it. Like other founders are out there grinding and you tapped out because you wanted to drink coffee in a quiet kitchen.
So I picked the noble version. I built a whole brand around it. Home by 3pm. For the kids.
And every word of it is true. But it's not the whole truth.
The whole truth is: I was the one drowning. Stressed. Overworked. Overweight. Not them. They were fine. They had each other and school and screens and a mother who was more present than I was. They didn't need rescuing. I did.
And here's the part I'm still working out: It's perfectly OK.
You don't need a noble reason to want your life back. You don't need a kid, or a sick parent, or a near-death experience, or a therapist's permission slip. "I want to stop feeling like this" is enough. It has always been enough. We just don't say it out loud because it sounds like quitting.
It's not quitting. It's choosing.
I feel like this is the true beginning of the Home by 3pm newsletter. The kids are still major part of it. But I'm done pretending they're the whole reason. If you're reading this and you've been using something — your kids, your health, your partner — as the acceptable cover story for the fact that you just want out of your current situation, I want you to know: you can drop the cover.
"I want to" is the reason too, and it's enough.
The Ugly Question
Here's the tip this week. It's not a framework. It's one prompt. Open Claude or ChatGPT and paste this:
"If my kids didn't exist — or if I had no family at all — would I still want to change how I work? Ask me follow-up questions until I give you an honest answer, not a polished one. Don't let me off the hook."
Then actually answer the questions.
If the answer is no — if you're truly working this hard purely for them and you'd happily grind forever otherwise — fine. That's a real answer and it deserves respect.
But if the answer is yes — if you'd want this change even in a life with no one to justify it to — then you've been carrying a permission slip you don't need.
Throw it out. The reason underneath is enough.
That's all for this week. I'll be back to regularly scheduled programming next Thursday — with a tip you can actually put on a Post-it. But I felt this one needed to come out.
If this resonated, hit reply and tell me what your cover story is or has been. I read every response. No advice back, no pitch — I just want to know I'm not the only one.
— Michal
P.S. If you're reading this and thinking "he's overthinking it" — you might be right. Here's my second tip, free of charge (like every tip I share): if you're overthinking anything, write it down. Overthinking "on the paper" is how you stop overthinking in your head. A scrap of paper, a notes app, the back of an envelope. The page breaks the loop. See you next Thursday!
P.P.S. I mentioned bees and corporate stories. Links are here in case you missed those!