The Soft Life Isn’t What Social Media Says

Happy Monday, friend. This is Day 5 of my 14-day 6 AM Check-in live series, and today we’re talking about the soft life.

Search “soft life” on any social media site and you’ll see women with beautiful aesthetics: nice clothes, well-manicured homes, hair done, nails done, everything done. And you might think, “That’s not for me. That’s too much work. That doesn’t feel soft at all.”

You’re 100% correct. It isn’t, and that’s not what the soft life is.

What I used to think it meant

Back around 2020 to 2022, I thought the soft life meant expensive trips, a photographer following you around, and luxury cars. Then I started having real conversations with my girlfriends, and I quickly realized the soft life is much simpler.

The soft life is waking up in the morning and deciding what you’re going to do that day. You check your calendar: a meeting at noon, so I’ll work out this morning. A lunch date with my girlfriend. A conference this week. That’s it. It has nothing to do with being a multimillionaire, and nothing to do with comparing yourself to anybody else.

What it looks like for three of my girlfriends

One owns a clinic. To her, the soft life is checking on her clinic and her real estate properties, then hanging out with her girlfriends whenever she wants. Sometimes she hops on a plane and spends a week with me. We don’t do anything extravagant. We sit by my pool, talk business and real estate, and catch up on our kids and grandkids. Calm and relaxing.

Another has a standing date once a month: she flies to another state to see a girlfriend. They talk about what’s going on in their lives, set simple goals, check whether they hit them, and figure out how to help each other.

A third runs her own business Monday through Friday, and her soft life is reading. She sits with her books and gets lost in the pages.

None of it is about money, glitz, or glamour.

What it looks like for me

You see me every weekday at 6 AM on my Peloton. I love deciding which workout I want to do each morning. After the bike, I go to the gym or take a four- or five-mile walk. Then I check my email and my schedule, hop on a consulting call with a client for about an hour, review my real estate portfolio, and hand off what needs doing to my assistant.

And after that, you’d better bet your bottom dollar I’m going to play golf, almost every single day.

None of it has to be posted or approved by anyone. Nobody’s banging on my door saying something is due by 5 PM. That’s the life I chose.

Simple things count

My girlfriend brought over four sunflowers the other day. I cut the stems and put them in a pretty vase, and we just sat there looking at them, talking about the joy flowers bring us. She kept coming back to check on them. No stress, no strings attached. That’s the soft life.

Something I’d love to start again is sewing. When I was a teenager, my grandmother sewed all my clothes, and she taught me how to cut out patterns and line things up. I don’t want to sew to sell anything or become a millionaire. I want to sew because I think it would ground me and bring me back to my roots.

For you today

• Define the soft life for yourself. What does your ideal ordinary day look like?
• Ask yourself: what has to be true in your life for that to happen?
• Try one simple thing that brings you joy. If it doesn’t cause friction or upset anything inside you, keep doing it.

Don’t feel guilty about doing what you love, and don’t compare your life to anybody else’s. At the end of the day, you don’t want to look back and say, “I wish I’d slowed down. I wish I’d smelled the roses.”

See you tomorrow, live at 6 AM Eastern on YouTube.