--The Truth About Life After a Big Exit-- After I sold Exploding Topics, I should have been on cloud nine. Instead, my Oura Ring had me at 2X my normal stress. Here's the part of "the big exit" nobody warned me about: When the deal closed, I waited for the wave of relief to hit. But it never came. Which makes ZERO sense on paper. I was set for life. What's there to stress about? My nervous system apparently disagreed. Turns out your brain doesn't always get the memo to chill out. It's still wired to scan for threats and chase opportunities. So it doesn't care that you technically "won." Here's what pulled me out of it: 1. A hard reset I left my entire environment and went to the beach for a month. Something about escaping the day-to-day flipped a switch: "okay, you're safe now." Came home and the stress was almost back to baseline. 2. I did NOTHING for a year Once the stress lifted, the boredom moved in. And with it, the itch to start another company. Then a friend sent me a Yale study on founders who'd just sold. The finding: people who started something new within a year of exiting almost always regretted it. So every time I wanted to launch something, I told myself: wait a year. By the time the year was up… I didn't want to anymore. 3. I replaced the company with tennis Sounds kind of weird. And it is. But a business secretly gives you four key things: structure, purpose, identity, and a team. These four things vanished the day I sold. Tennis quietly handed them all back (and more). Community, competition, fresh air, exercise... all in one activity. Now I don't feel the urge to build something just to fill the void. Ever hit a big goal and felt worse afterward? 👍🏻