The pin, the rake, & the thing I DIDN'T do ... [🐝U]

Friday I lost the whole day to logistics.

5 hours of driving.
90 minutes of charging stops.
3 hours at a shed manufacturer trying to sort out somewhere safe to survive winter.

Found 1. Bigger & more expensive than what I planned for.
& no wood stove so that & the install adds to the cost.
But the insulation beats what's required in a house... & it's tall enough that someday, somebody can build a loft in there.

Not exactly what I wanted. But it can work.

Got home & it had rained.
Hard.
Wasn't even in the forecast but I shouldn’t be surprised at this point.

Some of what I normally keep in the truck got stored in the tent to make room for the cats to ride along given the trailer's electrical can't be trusted to keep the AC running for them.

The tent wasn't prepped for a storm so everything stored in there got soaked.

Saturday started with the chainsaw chain breaking while I was cutting dead trees off the path to the outhouse. Couldn't finish.

Then I lost the pin off the ATV trailer while driving through a flooded stretch. It's the size of my hand, & metal, so it should stand out in grass.
Except it's probably sitting somewhere in deep water instead.

10,000 steps before 9am.
Almost all of it walking that same stretch of path over & over, looking for it.

Somewhere between the 3rd trip up & down that flooded path, I realized I was crying. Not because of the trailer pin.
Because it wasn't just about the trailer pin anymore.

It was the flood before this one … the snow before that … the next thing breaking before I'd finished fixing the last one.

Then to add insult to injury, the rake broke while leveling gravel in the mechanical room.

Hand-washed laundry in a 5-quart cooler with camping soap.
Had maybe 3 or 4 litres left in the camp shower after washing my hair.
Ran out before the laundry was finished.

Here's the part I'm not going to dress up

The mechanical room that's supposed to make the whole property function is built, but flooding means wet plywood so it can't be painted, wired, or fully used yet.

It's just sitting there … waiting … like everything else

This morning my fingers were too swollen to make a fist.
Which also meant breakfast wasn't happening anytime soon.
& my feet were too swollen for rainboots.
Meanwhile, the drinking water’s in a shed that's currently standing in 4 inches of water.

None of this started this weekend.
It’s been going on for 9 months.

It was record snowfall, then flooding, then more flooding, then the next problem (& expense) showing up before I'd recovered from the last one.

By Saturday afternoon, it wasn't really about the water anymore.

That's why I didn't open the laptop.
Not because there weren't hours left in the day … there were plenty
I just didn't have anything left to bring to them.

The emergencies were done for the day.

It was just me physically (& mentally) cooked … staring at a laptop I didn't want to open.

I chose to binge-watch Yellowstone on my tablet instead.
I don't regret taking the break. I know I needed it.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is let cowboys fight in Montana while your brain clocks out for a few hours dreaming of driving all your troubles to the “train station”

But I did notice how easy it is for the business to become the thing that quietly waits until tomorrow.

& that's the thing I keep circling back to

Life doesn't let you hide from it.
Not really.
Not for long.

The dog still needs to pee, storm or not.
The cats still need feeding.

If you're an employee, your job doesn't care that your hands are swollen... you show up anyway, or you deal with it by Monday.

If you're responsible for another life, human or animal, that responsibility doesn't go quiet just because you're worn out.

But your business … somehow that’s different.
Especially the part you're still building.

Nothing bad happens tonight if you skip it.

Nobody's waiting at the door.
Nothing's hungry.
No phone rings.

That's exactly what makes it dangerous.
Because the bill still comes.

It just arrives later, when rebuilding momentum is harder than showing up would've been.

There's a version of me that keeps the why steady even when the how completely falls apart, & another version that regularly logs more steps in a day than most people manage in a week without ever leaving my own gate.

Neither of those showed up Saturday night.

This time there was a real choice sitting right in front of me... not the how getting wrecked by something outside my control, just a choice.

& I used it on a few seasons of a show about a Montana ranch instead.

So here's what I'd actually ask you to sit with

→ Notice which relationship in your life never lets you disappear without consequence tonight... & which 1 always does.

→ If it's your business that goes quiet first, that's not a character flaw.
It's the only relationship that isn't currently forcing you to show up.
That doesn't mean it won't ask you to pay for it later.

→ Give yourself the break before the breakdown.
Just notice when "1 night off" turns into the new normal, because that's a different thing entirely.

The pin's still out there.
The shed's still in a pond.
My hands still don't fully close.

I'm not wrapping this up with a comeback story, because there isn't 1 … yet!

So tell me... when your mindset's worn down, what's the 1 thing you know you could ghost tonight & not feel it till it's already cost you something?

Make it a great "no-hiding" week!
EG

PS:

Want to help keep this newsletter subscription-free?
Choose whatever fits your life right now.

→ Click the 2 ads below … they quietly fund the flood-fix $1-2 at a time
→ Contribute to the tip jar … from bus change to coffee to “this really helped” support
→ Share it … you get a consulting call after every 10 referrals
→ 1-on-1 deep dive in your business — exclusive subscriber coaching & consulting rates

Thanks for being here. 
Seriously! 
I do appreciate your support.

What is an EOR—and why are companies using it?

Opening entities in every country can be slow, expensive, and hard to scale.

That's why more companies are using EOR to hire globally faster.

See how Oyster helps teams hire, pay, and support talent in 180+ countries while staying compliant along the way.

Get all the answers

The Hustle: Claude Hacks For Marketers

Some people use Claude to write emails. Others use it to basically run their entire business while they play Wordle.

This isn't just ChatGPT's cooler cousin. It's the AI that's quietly revolutionizing how smart people work – writing entire business plans, planning marketing campaigns, and basically becoming the intern you never have to pay.

The Hustle's new guide shows you exactly how the AI-literate are leaving everyone else behind. Subscribe for instant access.

Get our Claude playbook

PPS:
Every email is based on what you ask for … the more something’s asked for, the faster it finds its way to the top of the to-write-about pile
📣 Tell me what you want to read about … here
🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn … here
📈 Want to talk about better marketing results for your business by being yourself?
Find a time that fits your schedule.