Hi, I am Hind and yesterday I had that day.
You know, one of those builder days where you’re stretched thin, pulled in ten directions, map or GPS nowhere in sight and the only thing holding it all together is your refusal to drop the thread.
At some point — after hours of iced lattes and no solid food — I finally made it to the bathroom.
I took a selfie (something I’ve been doing almost daily for 16 years, more on that later).
I posted it on Instagram with a caption about my day, half-joking:
Friday night. 8:30pm. Central London.
3h of sleep.
20h glued to a laptop.
100 litres of iced latte.
Zero solid food. (If we exclude creatine gummies.)
Brain is fogging. Eyes are crossing.
First bathroom break in hours.
Thankfully the hair is blonding, the short is shorting and the shirt is …breathing (a bit too much probably). #balance
This is really the life of a dreamer… shall I do a Substack about it?
To my surprise, the answer was a tsunami of heart emoji reactions (thank you), a couple of enquiries about my colourist (because blonde I was not born) and an overwhelming yes.
Because people — generalisation extrapolated from my circle of curated Instagram friends — want to talk about this.
Work-life balance? Or choice?
People often talk about “work-life balance” like it’s something you can schedule on Google Calendar.
I don’t think it exists.
What exists is choice. Everything is hard, and we get to choose our hard.
For me, that choice is entrepreneurship.
Which means building the map as I go. The dreamer in me knows the destination. The maker in me does whatever it takes to get there.
That means iteration, resilience, and a constant refusal to put the pen down.
Discipline as the real engine
Entrepreneurship is glamorized as freedom and creativity, but the real engine is discipline.
Completion is an obsession. Execution is the art. And discipline means not stopping at 85% or 90%—but pushing to 100%. That extra 10% is where pride lives.
Excellence matters. It’s not about “doing the job.” It’s about “getting the job done.”
The bathroom mirror philosophy
That’s why I take bathroom (and lift) selfies. People tease me — is it vanity? Maybe a little. But more than anything, it’s a ritual of resilience.
A way of looking myself in the eye and saying: yes, you’re tired, but you’re still here, still standing, still looking like the person you want to be.
It’s a philosophy I perfected when I became a mum: never look as bad as you feel. A slippery slope avoided — and a discipline that’s stayed with me ever since, selfie included.
Partners, fuel, and rituals
The right partners make you feel invincible. With them, one plus one doesn’t equal two — it equals infinite possibility.
Discipline isn’t just about the work. It’s also about the fuel. Overpriced iced rose matcha lattes as energy, not luxury. Facials, massages, long walks after late nights. Rituals that keep the body strong, the spirit lifted.
The real luxury
The real luxury is not freedom from effort, but the pride of having gone all the way, together, and still being able to enjoy life while you do it.
Maybe that’s why this selfie resonated. It was real. Exhausted, a little cute, deeply appreciative of the job done, and yes, hungry. That’s what my people saw. And maybe that’s what we all need more of.
Discipline, joy, and a little bathroom mirror check are what keep dreamers like us standing tall.
With resilience, overpriced iced lattes, and forgiving bathroom light,
Hind
