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Hi, it’s Sarah – this is what we’re covering today:

Notes on one thing you can do when you’re feeling stuck
Round-up of my information diet this week
Figure out why a viral video went viral (and re-create it with your own twist?!)

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💌 it’s time to cook

There's something uniquely strange about sitting in front of a laptop at 4 p.m. on a beautiful Tuesday while everyone else seems to be outside. The sun is shining, the weather is perfect, and suddenly you find yourself questioning everything.

Maybe I should've been a summer camp counselor.

Maybe I should live somewhere else.

Maybe I need a new job.

I've learned to be careful with that last thought.

Because sometimes what feels like career dissatisfaction isn't actually a sign that you need something different. It's a sign that you're ready for more.

I love my job. In fact, I was talking with a founder this week who asked what it's like working on my team. I laughed and told him, "I invited my entire team to my wedding, and I spent my birthday with my boss."

That's genuinely how I feel.

So when I catch myself feeling restless, I know the answer probably isn't finding a new company. It's finding a new way to grow.

That's why I've started thinking about something I call a Growth Menu.

You may have heard of the idea of a "serotonin menu" – a list of simple things that reliably make you feel better, like grabbing coffee from your favorite shop, wearing an outfit you love, or listening to a playlist that instantly lifts your mood.

A Growth Menu works the same way, except instead of asking, "What will make me feel better?" it asks, "What will move me forward?"

Mine includes things like:

Reaching out to someone whose career I admire
Reading about an industry that’s in our firm’s investment thesis
Developing a new AI tool for our company
Researching start-ups that have just raised

One of my favorite items on my Growth Menu actually starts much earlier than sending an email.

During an exploration phase, I built a running list of around 50 people whose careers I admire – many of them work at venture capital firms I respect. I wasn't planning to contact all of them. I was simply collecting people whose careers made me think, I'd love to learn from them someday.

Now, when I want to invest in my growth, I don't have to start from scratch. I open the list, pick one or two names, and send a thoughtful note asking if they'd be willing to chat.

This week, one of them replied and offered to meet. That conversation may never directly lead to anything, although that’s rare – I’m sure I’ll leave with at least a good restaurant recommendation. Or it might completely change how I think about my career. Either way, it's growth.

If you want to build your own Growth Menu, I'd actually recommend using your fav LLM as a brainstorming partner. Here's a prompt to get started:

❝

Act as my executive career coach. Don't give advice yet – interview me first. Ask me one question at a time about my strengths, what energizes me, what drains me, the career I want in five years, the people whose careers I admire, and the skills I want to develop. Once you know enough, create a personalized Growth Menu with 20 actions I can take to grow in my current career, organized into quick wins, stretch opportunities, and long-term investments.

The important part isn't choosing the perfect action. It's creating enough options that you'll always have somewhere productive to turn when motivation dips. One thing I've learned is that there are really two separate phases:

Exploration & Execution

Don't try to do both at the same time.

Exploration is where you build the menu.

You collect ideas. You save articles. You make lists of people you admire. You identify skills you want to learn. You brainstorm projects you'd love to tackle. Spend a few days – or even a week – simply filling the menu without feeling pressure to act on every idea.

Execution is much simpler.

You don't have to decide what to do because you've already done that work. You simply open the menu, pick one thing, and do it.

That's exactly why I separated building my list of 50 people from reaching out to them. Creating the list took time. Sending an email takes five minutes.

The preparation makes the action easy.

I also think this matters because many of us aren't changing jobs as frequently as we used to. Earlier in my career, I switched roles every year or two. Now I've been at my firm for more than two years, and I have no desire to leave.

What I do want is to keep growing.

Growth isn't your manager's responsibility.

It isn't your company's responsibility.

It's yours.

And the people who continue growing – even when they stay in the same role – are usually the ones who create the most interesting careers.

So if you're feeling a little restless this summer, don't assume it's time to start job hunting.

It might just be time to build yourself a Growth Menu.