Midlife MavericksThis week humbled me.
Not in a big, dramatic way.
More like a slow, quiet, how did I lose two full days of my life way.
And annoyingly?
I knew better.
On Tuesday, I decided I was going to review one of my core contracts.
Nothing scary. Nothing urgent.
I told myself it would take about an hour.
(You already know where this is going.)
So Wednesday morning, I block the time. Coffee in hand. Brain switched on.
I start reading.
Then re-reading.
Then highlighting.
Then Googling.
Then spiralling into “what if this clause means…”
Suddenly it’s lunchtime.
No problem, I tell myself. I’ll finish it this afternoon.
I did not finish it that afternoon.
The entire afternoon disappeared.
Thursday morning, I woke up and went straight back to it. No shower. Just straight into the contract like this was a life-or-death situation.
Next thing I know, it’s 10:30am.
I have Zoom calls starting.
I’m panic-showering.
The contract is still nowhere near done.
And worse?
I now have more questions than when I started.
I had officially spent a day and a half doing something I actively tell other people not to do.
High-value brain.
Low-leverage task.
Wrong person. Wrong use of time.
Eventually, I did what I should have done from the start.
I reached out and got some quotes.
Handed it to someone who actually does this for a living.
And the kicker?
An old contact of mine had just gone solo. I asked him to review it.
He offered to do it for free.
I said no.
I told him I’d only let him review it if he let me pay him.
So yes, technically, I became his first client.
But that’s not the point.
The point is:
I had already burned 1.5 days pretending I was the right person for the job.
I wasn’t.
Quote of the Week
“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
Robert Heinlein
The Second Screw-Up: The Emails That Never Existed
Then, because apparently the universe wanted to really drive the message home, something else happened.
On Wednesday afternoon, I realised something felt… off.
I hadn’t received my own newsletter.
And yes, I’m a subscriber.
(Occupational hazard.)
At first, I brushed it off. Tech hiccup. One-off. Move on.
Then Thursday rolls around.
A friend casually says,
“Did you get my email?”
Another friend says the same thing.
Then a coaching client mentions they’ve emailed me multiple times.
I search everywhere.
Inbox. Junk. Archive. Deleted. Online. Offline.
Nothing.
No trace. Like these emails never existed.
At this point, I’m thinking:
Am I losing my mind?
Is this perimenopause?
Is Mercury in retrograde again?
So I log a support call with Microsoft.
One and a half hours later, during which they learned the names of my cats and my children, we find the issue.
A DNS problem.
Translation:
Some emails were coming through.
Some were vanishing into the abyss.
And I had no way of knowing which was which.
So if you emailed me recently and I didn’t reply?
I wasn’t ignoring you.
I genuinely never received it.
And yes, that means I missed replies to my own newsletter. Which is… humbling.
My email is working again now. Mostly. Which means I can respond to all your emails. Assuming I actually receive them. Thanks, Microsoft.
How to Know You’re the Wrong Person for the Job
Same week. Same mistake. Different contexts.
I assumed control meant competence. It didn’t.
So next time you catch yourself thinking “I’ll just do this myself,” run through this checklist:
1. The “just an hour” lie
If you tell yourself it will take an hour and it’s taking three, you’re the wrong person.
Someone who does this for a living would finish in 30 minutes. You’re not saving time. You’re hemorrhaging it.
2. The Google spiral
If you’re Googling basic concepts, you’re learning on company time.
Learning is fine. But call it what it is. Don’t disguise it as “handling it.”
3. The resentment test
If you finish the task and feel drained, annoyed, or like you just wasted your best thinking hours on admin, you failed the test.
High-value work energizes you. Low-leverage work depletes you.
4. The “I’ll just fix this real quick” loop
If you’ve said “I’ll just fix this” more than twice on the same task, stop.
You’re in a loop. Someone else has the exit.
Knowing better doesn’t make you immune to messing it up.
I acted like a bit of an idiot this week.
And then I fixed it.
That’s the job.
So Here’s What I Want to Know
What’s the thing you keep doing yourself even though you know you shouldn’t?
Not the thing you tell other people to delegate.
The thing you’re actually doing.
Right now.
The contract review. The email troubleshooting. The slide deck you’ve redone four times because no one else “gets” your vision.
Hit reply and tell me.
One sentence is enough.
I read every single response, and I answer most of them directly.
And yeah, sometimes your confession becomes next week’s newsletter. But anonymously. And only if it’s too good not to share.
