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.
I have rebuilt my life from nothing three times. Once after a seven-figure construction company went under in 2008, once after Brexit took most of a haulage business, and once when neither of those was the actual problem.
I write about starting again in the second half of your life. Not the version where you burn it all down and move to Bali. The version where you work out what is still sound, take out only what is rotten, and build from there. I still fit kitchens and bathrooms while I do it.
From the outside it probably looks fine. The work gets done. The bills get paid. People still rely on you and you still turn up for them.
Underneath it, something has stopped fitting. Maybe a business ended, or a marriage did, or the job went. Maybe nothing dramatic happened at all and you simply noticed one morning that you have been getting through the weeks rather than building anything you are proud of.
The usual advice is to set a bigger goal and find more motivation. That advice fails most people, and not because they are weak. It fails because it starts about four steps too far along.
When something in a life breaks, almost everyone reaches for the same phrase. Fresh start. Clean slate. Start again from scratch.
People mean it kindly. It is still the worst advice I have ever been given, and I took it.
Because a fresh start sounds like freedom and it is actually a demolition order. It tells you that twenty years of knowing how to do something is worth nothing now. That every supplier who trusts you, every skill in your hands, every hard thing you already came through, goes in the skip.
We do not do this with buildings.
I have spent thirty years in and around construction. If you called me about a house with a cracked wall and water coming in, and I turned up and said knock it down, you would get another builder, and you would be right to. That is not a survey. That is a panic.
Everything on this site works the other way round. Find out what is still standing first. Take out only what is genuinely rotten. Then build, in the right order.
The 10-Minute Weekly Reset is the sheet I use on myself. What actually moved this week, what did not, and the one thing worth doing next. One page, no app, no streak to keep up.
It is free. All I ask in return is five questions about where you are right now, because your answers decide what I build next.
This is a mirror, not a verdict.
Your message could not be sent. Please try again later.
No cost. Unsubscribe whenever you want, in one click.
Right, that's you. Opening the five questions now…
The Rebuild is where the thinking behind all of this is set out properly, with the parts of my own story I do not put in videos.
It is not a memoir. The story is only there because it earns the method. If you want one thing to read before you decide whether any of this is for you, read this.
"I tried to think of some suggestions, but honestly couldn't think of any way to improve this. If I was reviewing The Rebuild for publication, I'd give it five stars out of five."David Chadwick, novelist and retired journalist
I send one email on a Sunday. One idea, worked through properly, with something you can do about it before the week starts.
No daily emails, and no countdown clock on anything I sell. If a week goes by and I have nothing worth saying, you get nothing that week.
Your message could not be sent. Please try again later.
You get The 10-Minute Weekly Reset straight away. Unsubscribe in one click.
Done. The Reset is on its way now, and the first email lands on Sunday.
Everything else on this site sits behind one of these three doors. Take whichever one matches what you came for.
One proper article a week, filed into the eight things this site is about, from identity and fear to work after forty.
Read the library 02Seven countries, two businesses lost, no qualifications, and what all of that turned out to be worth.
The full story 03Renovate, Don't Demolish. A twenty-five minute talk for business groups, community events and bookshops.
Talk details and enquiriesYou 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