#18 Build With Intention | The People Who Tell You the Truth

Hello Reader,
Today I want to talk to you as a friend.

This newsletter took some time to write. I had a tough week. I was Busy, but lost. Working all the time, but unsure if any of it was the right work. I felt demotivated and started to guess every decision, every stream of work I was doing. You probably know the feeling.

I sat with it for a couple of days. Then I did what I needed to do. I had a session with my coach.

An hour later, I walked away with one sentence that changed my whole week. I want to share it with you.

Intention

Most of the people in our lives are kind to us. They cheer us on. They tell us we're doing great. That's a gift. But it's not the same as someone telling us the truth.

A cheer feels good for a day.

When you're feeling lost, you don't need more encouragement. You need someone who is allowed to say, "Here's what's working, and here's where you've stopped showing up for yourself."

Those people are rare.

Insight

This week, I sat down with my coach. God bless her.

I told her everything. The busy. The lost. The noise in my head.

She did three things in this order.

First, she reminded me what I'd actually done. Not to make me feel better. To make sure I wasn't being unfair to myself in the other direction. You can't fix where you are if you've decided you're nowhere.

Then she was honest about where I'd gone soft. The things I knew I needed to do and had quietly stopped doing.

And then she gave me one thing to focus on. Not a list. One thing.

"Get things done. Get your fire back."

That's it.

I left the session lighter than I'd been in weeks. Not because the work got easier, but because I finally knew which one thing was mine to carry this week.

That's what a good coach does. They hold up a mirror in which you can actually see yourself. They protect your wins from the voice in your head that says they don't count. And they protect your standards from the voice that says it's okay to slip a little longer.

Most of us only have one of those voices in our lives, not both. So we either feel like we're never enough, or we let ourselves off the hook too easily. Neither one moves us forward.

I want to be honest with you. I used to think coaching was something you did when something was wrong. I don't think that anymore. I think it's the cost of moving at the pace I want to move at.

There's a lot on my plate right now. Some of it is visible, some of it is not. And the truth is, none of us is meant to carry the heavy seasons alone.

Action

Here's what I want to leave you with this week.

Who in your life is allowed to tell you the truth? Both sides of it. The wins you're playing down, and the standards you've quietly let slip.

If you can name them, send them a thank you this week. They probably don't know how much they matter.

If you can't name them, that's the thing to fix before anything else on your list.

A Note

The reason I do mentorship is that I wanted to be that person for engineers and founders earlier in the journey. Not the cheerleader. Not the critic. Just an honest friend who can hold both at once.

If that's the kind of conversation you've been needing, the door's open.

​Book a call​

​

Hope this lands somewhere useful for you. Get things done. Get your fire back." and as always, build with intention.

~ Sahil