I Started Making Sourdough and Almost Became The Bread Guy: We’ve forgotten how to just like things.

A few years ago, I started making sourdough bread. I still make it every few weeks.

It’s really good. Really good. Honestly. People come over, eat it, make the noises people make when bread is really good, and say things like, “Oh my god.” “Are you kidding me?” “You made this?” And somewhere in those compliments, those well meaning and casual, I ‘m-just-being-nice-to-the-host compliments, I got what I thought was a brilliant idea.

I should sell this bread. I should be The Bread Guy.

I can see it now. The Alchemy of Bread. (I’m not joking. There’s even a dead Instagram (@alchemyofbread)

So I started baking some extra loaves. Started strategizing about farmers markets. Gave some away, and sold a few. And a about 20-loaves later, standing in my kitchen, I had a revelation that should have been obvious from the start: This isn’t fun anymore. This is a job. I don’t wanna think about oven space, racks to store bread, getting orders, and having to ensure each loaf is perfect. I love eating my bread and making it for my family, but this is a job I do not want.

So I stopped. And went back to making bread for people I love because I love them. Which, it turns out, besides eating it, was the entire point of making bread in the first place.

But for a minute there? I almost became The Bread Guy.

We seem to be in a moment, culturally. A moment where the second a human being enjoys something, anything, we feel like we have to monetize it, brand it, scale it, and turn it into an entire identity. You can’t just bake bread anymore. You have to be The Bread Guy.

You can’t just enjoy your one mens retreat. You have to come home and start leading them.

You can’t just go to a great coach. You have to become a coach. Three months. Certification optional.

You can’t just lose weight or like working out. You have to be a fitness influencer.

You can’t just love a product, you gotta start MLM’ing it.

You can’t just DJ your friend’s wedding. You have to start a SoundCloud.

You can’t just take pretty pictures. You have to be a photographer. With a logo. And a website.

And you can’t just go to one ayahuasca ceremony. Apparently, that qualifies you to facilitate them. (We need to talk about this one. We really, really do. It’s not ok.)

And here’s what I notice. Nobody pulls this with surgery. Nobody goes to a great doctor, has a life-changing appointment, and announces over dinner that they’re going to become a doctor next quarter. Nobody flies on Delta, finds it so inspiring, they starts flying 737s on the weekend.

For a long time I thought this was just a barrier-to-entry problem. Some industries gatekeep, some don’t. Period.

But there more to it.

The gatekeeping isn’t the real difference. The commitment is. You can’t half-ass or sorta commit to medical school. The structure won’t let you. You can’t show up to pilot training “when it feels right.” The structure makes you stay. The gatekeeping isn’t the wall; it’s the thing that forces commitment when you don’t have any of your own. And the industries we keep doing this in: coaching, personal growth, wellness, food, fitness, photography, music, clothing design, and baking, have no external structure forcing anyone to stay. So the staying has to come from inside you.

And nobody brings the staying.

We bring excitement. We bring newness. We bring the dopamine hit of starting. We bring the LLC, the logo, the launch post, and the carousel announcing the launch post. (You know the one. Slide one: a sunset. Slide six: “DM me to work together.” We’ve all seen it. Some of us have made it. I’m not naming names. I might be one of the names.)

And then twelve weeks in, when it stops being fun…

We’re out.

“I just wasn’t loving it. I just don’t think it was for me.”

Oh, you know it wasn’t for you. After twelve weeks. Cool. Glad we took the time to figure that out.

You know what this is? It’s the relationship version of dating someone fo three months and saying, “I just don’t think we’re compatible.” You weren’t incompatible. Maybe you hit the part where it stopped being new. Where you had to actually do the work of being with another human being. And you bailed and called it self-knowledge. The same thing with the businesses. Same thing with the hobbies. We want all the upside of the honeymoon and none of the patience of the marriage. We want the launch, not the long middle. The opening, not the third act. The dopamine of starting a thing, not the discipline of staying in a thing long enough to find out what it is.

Fun is part of the journey. It’s not the whole journey. Anything worth doing has long, boring, frustrating, soul-grinding middles where you wonder why you ever started.

The bread guys who are actually bread guys? They’re standing in a kitchen at 4am making the same loaves they made yesterday and will make again tomorrow. The retreat leaders who are actually retreat leaders? They’ve been doing it for ten years and are still figuring out what they don’t know. The coaches who are actually coaches? They’ve been broke, doubted themselves, watched clients leave, and stayed anyway.

That’s the part nobody puts in the launch post.

I also wanna talk to the community for a second.

You know who you are. You are the friends, who are tired. Why are you tired? Be every three months, someone you love announces a new thing. And you’re supposed to be excited. Again. Genuinely excited. Like a brand-new puppy level of excitement. You like the post. You buy the thing. You forward the email. You show up to the launch. You ask thoughtful questions about the offering.

And then it’s gone. And you don’t ask where it went, because you’ve learned not to and you just start to wonder what the next thing will be.

And then six months later, there’s a new new thing. And you have to do it all again. Same energy. Same enthusiasm. Same supportive face.

You are not a friend anymore. You are an unpaid investor in someone’s ongoing identity crisis. You have a portfolio of your loved ones’ abandoned dreams, and you are exhausted.

I see you. I have been you. I have also, occasionally, been the friend who needed you to be excited about something that did not last. We’re all in this together. Nobody’s clean.

So here’s the thing. You’re allowed to just like things. Liking something is a complete sentence. You can make bread because you like making bread. You can go to a men’s retreat because it was good for you, and that’s it. You can take great photos and never sell one. You can journal and not write a book. You can love something and not turn it into your brand.

The hobby is allowed to be the hobby.

And if something does grab you, if you genuinely feel called to build the thing, fuck ya! Build it. But know what you’re signing up for: the long middle. The boring part. The part where it stops being fun and you have to choose it anyway over and over and over again. Five years. Ten. Long enough to find out who you become in the process.

Because the thing isn’t the launch.

The thing is the staying.

— Alex