A few years into running my business, I was driving home from somewhere I can’t even remember now. I was feeling exhausted and depleted, like I’d been running an open tab I forgot I was keeping.
And “Vienna” came on. Billy Joel. I’d heard it a hundred times since the 80s. But this time one line came through the speakers and I actually had to pull over.
“Vienna waits for you.”
I sat in that parking lot doing nothing for a few minutes, which at the time wasn’t like me at all.
Billy Joel wrote that song as a kind of pushback against the idea that you have to achieve everything right now, fast, before it’s too late. The message is closer to: slow down. You’re not behind. The thing you’re racing toward isn’t running away from you.
I’d spent years building as if it were.
I ended up turning that whole realization into a short talk called “Vienna Isn’t the Reward.” Here’s the heart of what I said.
When I finally stopped sprinting in my business and paid attention, something surprising happened. I had more ideas. I made clearer decisions. I wrote better. Everything I thought I needed more hours and more energy to do, I could suddenly do with less friction.
That’s what building energy-first means to me. A business built around what sustains you instead of what burns you through.
And the reframe at the center of it is the line from the song. Vienna isn’t the reward you finally earn at the end, after enough sprinting. Vienna is how you choose to build right now. The pace, the sustainability, being present for your own work. It is where you’re going.
We’ve already done the sprint, most of us. Raised the kids, cared for the parents, climbed the thing, did the version that wasn’t quite ours. We get to build rest into the structure from the start.
Which song would make you pull over?
Life first. Work optional.It’s your business, your energy and your rules.