Early access: when you're stuck, walk away (but come back)

This one's up here first for the club before it goes public on YouTube tomorrow. What a week. Between family life, a back injury, projects, rowing regattas and just life really, it's been very hectic. Which is pretty reflective of this business. It's crazy all the time in some shape or form, and right now I'm always breaking new territory, maybe not for the industry, but certainly for my own knowledge and my life. Hence being here on a Sunday, catching up for a couple of hours. It's kind of a 24/7 business. I don't have a problem with that, but sometimes it takes its toll. The big lesson this week was about being stuck. Six hours against a brick wall Last weekend was another huge one, the family was tired, I was tired, and the week before had been full on. Then on Monday I was up against a timeline on a new project: a big, physical set of architect's drawers. It had one component I really didn't like, a metal mechanism, and I struggled with it all day. I was exhausted and I couldn't solve the problem. I probably spent six hours banging my head against a brick wall. I know I can be like that: I'll just keep pushing through. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. There was added pressure, too. I'd got so busy with everything else that I hadn't committed the time to this one early on, which I should have. That's lesson one. The real stuck bit was that I was getting more and more frustrated. My energy was going into the frustration rather than the solution. Eventually I just had to walk away, with about six or seven hours of work left and the pickup booked for 6 o'clock on Tuesday. Walking away isn't quitting It's a simple but hard lesson: when you're stuck and your energy's going into frustration, walking away is about the best decision you can make. Not quitting. Walking away. Take a breath, go for a walk, rest your mind. When you try to solve a problem that intently, your brain gets overwhelmed and doesn't get the processing time it needs. My brain wants to solve everything instantly, in about three minutes, which we know you can't do. The better move is to step back, get some perspective on what's possible, and look at it from all angles. On Tuesday I'd had a big sleep, so I was rested. I looked at the project again and realised the metal wasn't the way forward. I was going to have to build a whole new system, and that was no problem. I've seen enough pieces of furniture to know what system I needed, so I created my own version based on all those influences, put it in place and got stuck in. It wasn't less work. There was just less friction in my head, less mental fatigue and less frustration. I got the job done, but only because I walked away first. None of this is new to me. In my previous business, consulting, very cerebral, I'd get stuck all the time. I learned that if I went for a run at lunchtime, my brain would relax and the solution would drop in, sometimes within minutes. It's why people say the best ideas come in the shower. It's not a miracle place. It's just one of the few times you're not distracted by your phone or everything else, so your brain finally has time to process. I heard somewhere that we have something like 70,000 thoughts a day, and a lot of them are recurring and not that helpful. That's how we end up in a loop, and the harder we push against it, the more friction we create. Back in the boat I got another example yesterday at a regatta. It was my daughter's first race with her team, and short of actually sinking the boat, everything that could go wrong did. They came off the water, several of them in tears, saying they weren't going back out. Not rowing again, not racing again. I gave them a quick pep talk and left the coach to it. She took them out of the situation, calmed them down, and let them reflect, all while they were up against the clock for the next race. Then suddenly they popped out from behind the trees with their boat, looking calm and a bit tired. They had to row nearly a kilometre to the start line and then race about 900 metres, exhausted, in even worse conditions. And they completed it. If they hadn't stopped, reflected and got back in the boat, I think they'd have come away with a really negative feeling about racing. It was their first day. We didn't need them to win, we just wanted them to have a positive experience. We were so proud of them. Afterwards they were too exhausted to reflect much, but as the day went on they got happier. I sat them down and asked if they still wanted to row, and instantly it was yes. Training Monday, training Thursday, training Saturday. Whether you're 46 like me or 13 like my daughter, sometimes you just have to dust yourself off, take a breather, reflect, take the lessons and look again with fresh eyes. None of that is quitting. If they hadn't got back in the boat, that would have been quitting. If I hadn't come back on Tuesday and solved the problem, that would have been quitting. What this business has taught me I often get down when I can't find really good pieces, because I know there's an expectation from my audience and my email list that I'm bringing good things. I've set the bar reasonably high, and there's no hiding from the fact that I want to achieve really cool things. In the end it's only furniture, but it's an investment of time and effort for me and for customers. And there's the enjoyment: finding a great piece, sharing it and selling it is the payoff for a lot of hours most people never see. Nobody walks into a huge, beautiful shop here. They go to my website, and they have to fall in love, find the right thing at the right budget, and it has to be right for them. So a huge amount of work goes into the website, the Google side, the user experience, and almost every day I'm tweaking something. But if I wanted the perfect website or the perfect set of furniture all in one go, it wouldn't work. I've often said that if I gave someone 10 grand and told them to be a competitor of mine by the end of the day, they'd really struggle. You need an audience, a vibe, to know where to find great things and what good value looks like, plus the retail side and the logistics. None of that comes in one hit. Step back, then step back in When you're stuck, whatever it is, what solves it is reflection, awareness, a slight step back to see what your options are, and asking for help. I knew the solution for those drawers on Tuesday. I was just too close to it, literally. When I finished on Tuesday night, I was really proud, because the system I developed was really good. They're drawers, and I wanted them smooth and stable. They are, and they look great. Realistically I didn't make any money on it once you count the hours. But I walked away having learned a ton, and next time a project like that should be ten times easier. So whether it's your business or your life, don't be afraid to step back. Three minutes, an hour, a sleep, a few days. The main thing is to commit to going back to it with a different perspective, different energy and a different attitude. I pretty much guarantee you'll find a solution. Or if not the whole solution, you'll find steps one, two and three, and while you're doing those you'll work out four, five and six. That's the big lesson this week. If you're stuck on something, a project or otherwise, send it through the request-a-topic form on the feed. See you next time.

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