Human Renovation

Every rebuild
starts with
a survey

Before you knock anything down, find out what you're actually working with.

Free, five questions, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.

The survey on the surveyor

measured, not claimed

30Years in and around construction
7Countries lived in
3Times rebuilt from nothing
0Formal qualifications
Leon Smith, smiling, in a linen shirt in the hills near Mojácar
Leon, Mojácar

Hello, I'm Leon

I have rebuilt my life from nothing three times. Once when the 2008 crash closed my seven-figure construction company, once when Brexit took every haulage contract overnight, and once when neither of those was the actual problem.

Something no longer fits

From the outside it looks fine. The work gets done and the bills get paid. Underneath, something has stopped fitting. Tick what you recognise.

Snag list

  • Working hard, can't say what towards
  • Something ended and nothing replaced it
  • Money coming in, no direction
  • Keep starting things and stopping them
  • The advice sounds like it's for someone else
  • Not in crisis. Not settled either.

None of that makes you weak. The usual advice just starts four steps too far along.

The idea it's all built on

Nothing you have built is wasted

A fresh start sounds like freedom. It's a demolition order.

If you called me about a house with a cracked wall and I turned up and said knock it down, you'd get another builder. You'd be right to.

Survey first. Keep what's sound, take out only what's rotten.

Twenty years, in the skip
3WallsThe mind
5RoofWeathering the storm
4BeamsRelationships
2CornerstoneThe body
1FoundationIdentity

The five load-bearing parts of a life, as The Rebuild surveys them

A Weekly Review sheet filled in by hand beside the workbook, pen and reading glasses on the table

Free · The 10-Minute Weekly Reset

Ten minutes, once a week

The sheet I use on myself. What actually moved this week, what did not, and the one thing worth doing next.

All I ask in return is five quick questions, so I know what to write next. No sales funnel behind it, nothing to buy at the end. The Weekly Reset is completely free.

One pageWhat moved and what did not
No appA pen and ten minutes
No streakMiss a week and nothing breaks

Right, that's you. Opening the five questions now…

5 questionsReset in your inboxOne email, Sundays
The Rebuild by Leon Smith, front cover
Out now

The whole argument, in one book

"If I was reviewing The Rebuild for publication, I'd give it five stars out of five."

David Chadwick, novelist and retired journalist

Start with the survey

You do not have to decide anything today. Find out what you are working with first. Everything else can wait until you know that.

Get the Weekly Reset
Start over without
starting from zero.

same work, shorter

Follow the rebuild as it happens