The Wifi Went Out in Sahl Hasheesh
I took my laptop to Egypt. On purpose.
My wife and I took our two youngest - Levi (3) and Zoe (5) - to an all-inclusive resort in Sahl Hasheesh. First time we’d done all-inclusive in years. There’s always been this stigma around it for us. We’re the adventurous family. Road trips. New cities. Exploring nature. Sitting at a resort felt like giving up.
But we were tired. Both of us. So we booked it.
I told myself I’d relax. But I also packed my laptop. I had an eSIM with unlimited data. I brought a mobile wifi device as backup. Two connectivity options, just in case.
Just in case of what? In case I had an idea and needed to act on it immediately.
The thing about building
Here’s what’s been happening in my life lately.
I’ve been building things with AI at a pace I’ve never experienced before. Tools for clients. Internal systems. A second brain that captures everything I think about - newsletters, YouTube transcripts, client notes, ideas. The pace is addictive. You describe something, debug it for a bit, and it works. Thirty minutes. An hour. Something that would have taken weeks two years ago.
I’m seven years into running eCom Ads. Thirteen years into being a dad. I know what meditation is. I know how important it is to unplug. I’ve had my breaks. I have routines and systems for this.
And I still packed two backup internet devices for a family vacation.
That should tell you something.
What happened
The resort wifi was okay. But the VPN I need for work distorted everything. Connections dropped. Pages half-loaded. Claude Code timed out.
I had ideas. So many ideas. A tool I wanted to build. Legal stuff I wanted to organize for the business. Notes I wanted to process. Things I wanted to push into my system.
And it just didn’t work.
I sat there, phone in hand, trying to force a connection. And at some point I thought: what am I doing here?
Not in a dramatic, movie-moment way. More like a quiet recognition. I’m at a resort in Egypt with my wife and two small kids. The sun is out. Nobody needs anything from me. And I’m hunched over a screen trying to make a VPN cooperate.
Vacation with young kids is not vacation
Here’s something nobody tells you until you live it.
Vacation with young kids is relocation. You move your entire household into an unfamiliar space. You rebuild routines from scratch. You figure out where the nearest bathroom is, what time lunch is served, how to get the stroller across sand, whether the pool is safe enough for a three-year-old.
It’s exhausting in a different way than work. But it’s still exhausting.
This trip was different. All-inclusive meant we didn’t cook. Didn’t plan meals. Didn’t organize activities. Didn’t think about groceries. The kids ate when they were hungry. We sat by the pool. We went to the beach. We did a day trip to Luxor that was incredible but completely different energy.
The rest of the time? Nothing. Actual nothing.
And it took me days to settle into that.
The ADHD part
I should be honest about this.
My brain doesn’t stop. It’s constantly online. Ideas at breakfast. Frameworks in the shower. Business problems while watching the kids splash in the pool.
That’s my ADHD. It’s my curse and my blessing. The same thing that lets me see patterns in ad accounts and connect dots across industries also makes it nearly impossible to fully switch off.
The building addiction is real. There’s dopamine in shipping something new. In solving a problem. In watching a tool come to life. And right now, with AI making that loop faster than ever, the hits come quicker.
Everyone I know in this space is the same. Twitter is terrible for it. LinkedIn is worse. Everyone’s building, shipping, sharing their latest agent or skill or automation. It feels like if you stop for a week, you’re already behind.
The solution I didn’t expect
Here’s the thing that actually saved me.
Before the trip, I’d set up a simple note capture system. An app on my phone that pushes notes to my brain’s inbox through GitHub. No ongoing connection needed. Just type a thought, hit send, done. It queues up and waits.
So when the wifi failed and I couldn’t do actual work, I started using that instead.
Idea for a client dashboard? Note dump. Legal structure thought? Note dump. Tool concept? Note dump.
My brain could keep running. The ideas didn’t get lost. But I wasn’t building. I wasn’t in execution mode. I was just... capturing. And then putting the phone down.
When I got back and opened my morning routine, the system read my inbox and processed everything. Sorted it. Flagged what needed action. Put things in the right folders. Every thought was there. Nothing lost.
I got back on track without losing a single idea. And I’d actually rested.
What I realized
By the end of the week, my wife and I looked at each other and both said the same thing.
This is what it feels like when you really don’t have to do anything.
Not “vacation but still checking Slack.” Not “relaxing but also planning next week.” Actually nothing. And it was so much better than we expected.
I came back recharged in a way I haven’t been in months. Maybe longer.
The thing is - I know all the advice. Disconnect. Set boundaries. Protect your time. I have systems for it. Routines. A weekly couple check-in with my wife. Morning meditation. The whole stack.
And I still needed to be forced.
The wifi going out was the best thing that happened to me in February.
What I’d tell you
You can’t give what you don’t have.
If you don’t have clarity yourself, you can’t give clarity to your clients. If you’re constantly building, you can’t actually analyze whether what you’re building matters. If you never stop the engine, you never check the oil.
And when you’re eventually put under real pressure - a client emergency, a team issue, a personal crisis - you’ll collapse. Because there was nothing in reserve.
I’m a seven-year founder. A thirteen-year dad. I’ve been doing this a while. And I still need the reminder.
Maybe you do too.
The wifi went out in Sahl Hasheesh. And for the first time in months, I actually rested.
Sometimes the best system is the one that breaks.
- Raoul