When Your Body Shuts Down... Listen

No email yesterday.

Not because I was tired.
But because I was physically out.

High fever.
IV drips.
Doctor visits.

Turns out it was a thyroid fever infection and salmonella from contaminated water & food here in Bali.
Not the tropical digital nomad highlight reel you see on Instagram huh.
But sadly it’s true.

And also… probably necessary.

See, I didn’t feel burned out.
I wanted to work.
I wanted to keep building.

But my body forced a full stop.
Because sometimes it knows better than the mind.

Here’s what I realized on that forced pause:

I’ve been in GO mode.
Trying to just do more.

But not always aligned.

Not always doing my one thing—
That one thing that, if I just focused on it,
Would make everything else easier or irrelevant.

So I was forced to stop and slow down.
I journaled.
Reflected.
Reread one of my favorite books by Alan Watts on Taoism (the art of effortless action)…

And remembered:

“When you force things, you swim upstream.
But when you move with your human nature? Things flow.”

From now on, I’m doing fewer things.
But I’ll do them deeper.
And only if they give me energy, not take it.

Only if they align with my nature,
What I’m best at,
And what I actually want to build.

Otherwise my business becomes a job I can’t quit.

So, if you’ve been in GO mode for a while…
Ask yourself:

What’s your one thing?
The one thing that—if you did it—would make everything else easier or unnecessary

Do that.
And let the chaos pile up.

Because when your one thing is done,
You won’t need to fight the chaos.

It takes care of itself.

What is your one thing?

Take care of your health
Chris Punt