Six Good Hours

I didn’t make it to the cabin.

Turns out you don’t need pine trees and silence to rethink your business.

Although it probably helps…I just needed a few weeks of dedicated thinking time (with a pen and paper) to surface the uncomfortable truths.

My business strategy, my positioning, my approach, my expectations, my skills, and my blind spots.

Here’s one realization was this:

The version of me who started this business — the one running purely on uninformed optimism, ambition, and irrationality — is gone.

In his place is someone far more realistic.

That’s not a bad thing.

It’s just…different.

And the clearest difference is this: I have six good hours a day.

That’s my reality right now.

The younger me would scoff that number.

He’d push past it.

Pretend it didn’t exist.

Call it ‘not working hard enough.’

Time constraints weren’t a thing back then.

But now I know better.

Decision-making is never has perfect conditions.

It’s done under a ceiling, on a shot clock, with real-world trade-offs breathing down your neck.

Pretending otherwise isn’t optimism, it’s the shortest route to burnout, bad calls, and eventually resenting the work you love.

I have circumstances in my life right now that change the dynamic as to how I do business.

Young kids (who don’t like sleep).

A home renovation (one requiring us to reside it other spaces).

A spouse who also needs to build her business.

A calendar that’s honestly filled with many, many, tiny interruptions.

I’m actually not complaining.

This is just a written reminder to myself that says: Pay attention. These are the cards on the table.

Even with a few early mornings and some late nights each week, I find myself ramming into the same wall: six good hours a day.

Not eight.

Not ten.

Six.

For a while, that number felt like an ‘unsuccessful’ day.

I thought I should have more.

That “more” was the point.

But here’s the funny thing about limits: once you accept them, they stop being limits.

I know we talk about the beauty of thinking-out-side-the-box.

But there is thinking-inside-the-box too.

And that’s just as beautiful.

Six good hours.

That’s what I have.

I decide what they’re worth.

And I decide how to use them.

That means no more making decisions as if I’m still that younger version of me with nothing but time and energy.

It was different before. It will be different again.

But today, it’s six.

And that’s not a compromise.

It’s the reality that makes better decisions possible, because they’re based on the world as it is, not as I wish it to be.

Thank you for reading.

See you next week.

— Peter

P.S. I’ve got six good hours. What about you?