Here it is:

I can’t be everything to everyone anymore.

The hard part of this was the fact that I didn’t even realize I was trying to be or how I was falling into this pattern.

I was with a friend the other day and she said, “how many people reach out to you in a week would you say?” And I had to really think about it and then think about the platforms. And when I was doing this math…I was not counting strangers or random LinkedIn messages. I am talking about people I have met throughout the years…at one of my events or just out and about. Being a public figure is something that few people understand because social media allows people to build what they call “para social” relationships with you. Because the past 10+ years I have shared a lot about my life on the internet…people think they know me more than they do?

After doing some quick math (via text, email, Instagram DMs, LinkedIn messages, etc)...I get upwards of 100+ messages a week from different people. And I am not talking about messages that are like “Hi, how are you?” Most messages are “can you meet up for coffee to hear about an idea I have?” “Can you let me borrow jerseys for the Timberwolves game? (I have received that one over 20 times which probably sounds weird but its true). “Can you look at this video and let me know your opinion?”. “Let’s grab dinner.” Again, it’s all innocent on both ends but because I have been trying to maintain this type of relationship with upwards of hundreds of humans…it is the pattern of an insane person. Or an insecure person. Or a people pleaser.

So I am working on undoing it. And it’s uncomfortable.

Over the years, without meaning to, I somehow became the person people reached out to… in the fashion space, the art space, the founder world, mental health, nonprofits, small business, community organizing, marketing, new graduates entering their careers… all of it. Not because I’m special… but because I care deeply, listen deeply, and genuinely want people to feel supported.

The irony is that I never wanted to let people down, but I was letting people down constantly simply because I had zero capacity and no structure to hold everything I was trying to carry.

The worst part was how invisible the cost was.

I didn’t recognize how depleted I’d become. I didn’t see the resentment forming in the corners of my day, or how the overwhelm was slowly taking over. I didn’t notice my creativity going quiet. I was “on” for everyone else… and barely showing up for myself.

And guess who suffers the most in this? Not just me but my ACTUAL close friends and family. People I really care about were put on the back burner as I was trying to juggle “CONNECTING” with hundreds of people. I was so afraid of disappointing someone or not being liked because I couldn’t do something for someone. My entire identity was centered around that so this shift has been like one big beautiful orgasm (sorry if my mom is reading this).

I don’t expect most people to understand what that actually feels like. But I needed to share the shift to anyone that has been thinking of deleting social media for a while. DO IT!
The relief is kind of insane and my brain is functioning higher as is my emotional capacity for people I care about.

Most people have a few close friends and maybe a wider circle they check in with. I unintentionally ended up inside a giant, messy web of relationships with no boundaries, where everyone had equal access to me all the time.

Deep connection does not scale. Human nervous systems don’t scale.

I didn’t see that I had become something no individual should ever be:

the central hub of a massive, boundaryless network.

I realized that is a job for a system, not a human.

The beauty is this is again why LittleBig was born. It’s the infrastructure I tried to be and it’s the system I never had.

LittleBig is the shift from:

“Sarah connects everyone” → “LittleBig helps people find the connections, resources and opportunities to grow.”

I should never be a bottleneck and I hated that it got to a place where I felt like if I wasn’t constantly “on” or “connecting” that I was disappointing someone.

And stepping away from social media these past few weeks made everything clear.

Without Instagram or TikTok on my phone:

I’m not being pulled in a hundred directions and I am not drowning in messages I can’t respond to. I’m also not CONSUMING SO MUCH CONTENT all day…every day. Our brains aren’t meant for that.

Here is something I never expected to say:

I’m relieved that fewer people have access to me.

It’s the only way I can keep building a life and a company that doesn’t destroy the very thing I’m trying to protect:
my creativity, my mental health, and my humanity.

Lastly, saying no to so many things has me saying yes to things more intentionally. I am currently on a flight to Miami for Art Basel which is something I have wanted to do for years. I am being more aware of how I say yes and to who…and how I say no and to who…

Opportunities are broadening and my mindset is shifting.

Growth happens in the uncomfortable.

I got there at about 8am in the morning for a meeting and I think the average age there is 75 (at least on this particular day). The energy was super warm, calm and everything about it was a reminder of a world we are losing. Something I noticed while I was there was the art of “the visit”.

My grandma used to say it all the time as she would pick up her landline. “Come over for a visit.”

When I was younger I never really understood what that meant but as I grew older I would go over to my grandma’s simply “to visit”.

Visit kind of seems like it is disappearing right now. A lot of times we meet up for coffee but it just seems like it is a little less about the visit and more about the catch up. Does that make sense? To me “a visit” represents presence, slowless and connection without an agenda.

And watching that older generation at Turtle Bread, I am realized how much we have forgotten that.

There was a table of eight people near me, probably in their seventies and eighties, laughing and telling stories and celebrating a birthday. Noone was checking their phone and none of them were rushing. The presence was truly vibrating in that moment as the sun kissed on their worn faces and deep experiences of life. Like they know what it is all about and it was such a gut wrenching reminder of what connection really means.

THEN I saw something that almost made me cry. (maybe I cried a little)
Two men who seemed to be good buddies, both well into their eighties, sat down with their BLT and roast beef sandwiches. Before they took a bite, they reached for each other’s hands, bowed their heads, and said how grateful they were for their friendship, their meal, and their health.

It stopped me. I sat there thinking,
“When was the last time I slowed down enough to feel that level of gratitude for the simple things?”

We are all so busy. To get where? To do what? To prove what?

If you need a reset, go to Turtle Bread on a weekday morning. Watch how this generation visits. Watch how they sit with each other. Watch how they listen and how they laugh.

I am on week two of having no Instagram or TikTok on my phone and honestly, you would have to pay me to download them again. I am fortunate to have a team that can manage my accounts so I can still promote LittleBig without falling into the scroll vortex.

This break has me thinking a lot about the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media and how much it has changed what connection means. We have replaced “the visit” with Google calendar invites. We have replaced being present with performance. We have replaced conversation with content.

And it is not making us happier…quite the opposite.

Sitting inside this little bakery last week surrounded by people who actually know how to visit, I realized something simple and obvious that I somehow forgot.

Connection is something you create in the tiny moments you are usually too busy to see.

Maybe we all need more Turtle Bread moments. I do believe we need more visits.

I would do anything to go visit with my grandma again.

For a long time I thought it only applied to founders or people trying to create something out of nothing with no roadmap… Those people who were trying to build something out of absolutely nothing.
When your job is trying to see ten steps ahead while holding everything together in the present and learning from the past it can feel like constant stress.

But I feel like lately this quote kind of applies to everyone? It’s no longer for founders, creatives, or people paving their own path…it’s for people with stable jobs and followed traditional career paths.

I hear so many people saying things like, “I feel stuck.” “I feel overwhelmed.” “I feel lost,” “I feel like I’m starting over.” “I don’t know where I fit anymore.”

I feel like I am being asked to turn into…this?

[ Art commissioned by @4id_art (Ebenezer Nwaokpani) ]

This is the new world we are living in, so how do we find peace and support to find our space in this new world?

Obviously we are seeing layoffs happening everywhere. And I think most of us are sick of seeing “AI this, AI that”. Blah blah. Yes of course AI is changing our jobs faster than our brains can process but everything is just so dang NOISY right now.

And a world that demands reinvention every few years whether we want it or not.

And then you look at the data and it all makes so much sense.
I read that more than half of Americans say they feel lonely at least once a week and that seventy three percent of creators say they feel burned out.
And about sixty million Americans freelance, many not because they want to, but because they feel pushed into it because of the economy and job market.

- One in three workers fear AI will disrupt their job.
- Eighty six percent of workers say they are rethinking their career path.

So obviously this is all pretty uncomfortable. And it can feel like chewing glass and staring into something we cannot fully name yet.

I would just like everyone reading this to know you’re not a failure or a loser. I love reminding myself and others that we are not losers. We are in a collective transition.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs have been living in this feeling forever and now the whole world is joining us.

And if you grew up without a safety net, the feeling hits even deeper.

I’ve talked about this before but I didn’t grow up with money. So if I couldn’t make payroll or pay a bill…there was no calling Dad to help me out. There was no cushion or fallback plan. I have always had a hard time relating to people/kids who has family that could help them out. Life is very different when you can’t pay rent AND health insurance. The mental stress of this constant push is enough to drive anyone nuts. The beauty is that a lot of times I’ve noticed that people that don’t grow up with resources are a lot more creative…BECAUSE THEY HAD TO BE LOL.

People born into generational wealth will NEVER understand the feeling of not knowing how you’re going to pay your bills or where your next paycheck is coming from. It’s scary. And also can create some of the most beautiful moments of personal growth because growth doesn’t come from being comfortable.

So lean into your creative self and your curiosity. I mentioned I deleted TikTok/Instagram off my phone which has been such a gift and I’ve replaced it with Masterclass! I highly recommend this episode:

All this to say that I do not have all the answers but a lot of questions?

How do we find the connections we need to move forward in this new world?

Something that has given me a lot of peace lately are just little moments of connections with family and friends. This past weekend my sister and her fiance made an amazing salmon dinner and we talked, laughed and watched movies. It was so simple and so good for the soul. This type of connection is all around us.

As someone that has been consumed by social media the past 10+ years, relearning what connection really looks like and feels like has been a truly blessing.

That’s all I got today!

But lately, it’s also taken a lot. Too much.

I think people would be shocked by how many requests I get in a day. Messages on Instagram, text, emails, calls…I have somehow unintentionally built my own little social media network but the problem is…i’ve been at the center of it…which is why it’s broken and why I’m building LittleBig…to take me out of the middle of the things people need/want/and are asking for from me.

“Sarah, can you promote this?”
“Sarah, can you come to my event?”
”Sarah, where can I find a filmmaker for a project?”
“Sarah, can I pick your brain?”
”Sarah, do you know where I can find Minnesota brands that are passionate about mental health?”
”Sarah, can you help me find a seamstress?”

And because I love people, and I genuinely want to help, I almost always say yes.

But that “yes” has come at a cost.

I’ve said yes to things I didn’t have the capacity for way too often.
There are a lot of times that I’ve forgotten things I meant to follow through on.
I’ve disappointed people… sometimes publicly, sometimes quietly…and it’s created chaos in ways that frusgtrate others and myself. It’s because I am only one person and trying to do too much.

It’s made me realize that trying to make everyone feel seen often leaves the people closest to me feeling unseen including myself.

I’m taking accountability for that.
And I’m trying to change it. So I have a plan on how I’m going to do that…

I recently saw a clip of Pete Davidson talking about how being off social media changed his life.
He said he’s happier now. More peaceful. More grounded.

And I love that for him.
But it also made me think about how logging off is a privilege not everyone can afford.

Because for so many of us, being online isn’t just where we scroll…it’s how we survive.
It’s where small businesses find customers, where artists sell their work, where freelancers land clients, where creators build community.

Logging off isn’t just about peace. Sometimes, it’s about privilege.

But social media isn’t just social anymore.
It’s marketing. Networking. Storytelling. Sales. Branding.
And it’s also exhausting.

Even when you love it, it takes something from you.
Because being online all the time…even for the right reasons, it rewires your brain to believe that if you’re not visible, you’re irrelevant.

That’s not just unhealthy. It’s unsustainable.

And I’ve been living at the edge of that line for a long time. Way too fucking long.

So, I’m doing something different. I am pretty terrified if I’m being honest.

I’m deleting Instagram and TikTok from my phone.
My incredible LittleBig team will be helping manage my accounts from here on out so I can focus my energy on creating, dreaming and building.

But I’m not disappearing. I’m just creating space…to think, to breathe, to be a better friend, partner, and creator. I will be working with my team so I can still share things I care about (small businesses, artists, inspiration, chefs). I just won’t be seeing all the messages/requests/etc. I need to work on how to say no before I can be online in a healthy way.

And connection shouldn’t cost us our mental health.

Why I’m Building LittleBig

That’s what LittleBig is about…building a new kind of system that helps people grow, collaborate, and thrive without sacrificing their humanity.

It’s about building connection that doesn’t depend on performance.
It’s about helping people (myself included) learn how to exist in this digital world differently.

What’s Next

This Substack will be where I share all of it:)
The messy middle of creating, failing, unlearning, and rebuilding.
Stories about art, creativity, and connection. And the truth about what it actually feels like to build a life around people and then realize you’ve been forgetting yourself.

If you’ve ever felt stretched too thin, if you’ve ever overcommitted, or if you’ve ever said yes when you meant no… this space is for you.

💛
Sarah